


The Fallen and the Wandering

by creeshtar



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adam is mentioned, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Couch Cuddles, Denial of Feelings, Depictions of Death, Depictions of depression, Eventual Romance, Injury, Keith takes being a loner to an entire new level, M/M, Magic, Near Death Experiences, Romance, Slow Burn, Tags to be added, a little bit of mystery?, and wishmaking, but like advanced, i have been informed that this is a slow burn, in a hospital bed of all things, lots and lots of wishmaking, mentions of adashi, multi-chapter, not entirely scientifically accurate, of the celestial variety, perceived character death, some borrowing of hats, some unclear things made clear, some violence, tadaaaaa, though whether they come true or not remains to be seen, we've upgraded to bed sharing, whaaaaat Adam is here??, which is basically just another form of bed sharing, while others remain to be foggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-07-20 11:50:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 106,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16136639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creeshtar/pseuds/creeshtar
Summary: Keith was born into a world of ice and darkness, with no sun to rise or stars to shine. In spite of humanity’s best efforts, the world is meeting a slow, but certain doom, which can only be stopped if the sun is found and replaced in the sky. Keith, meanwhile, is content to collect stars and eventually replace them in the sky, alongside a new partner that he can’t seem to help but gravitate towards--until a mysterious person with inhuman power goes on a warpath to find the sun for herself. Keith and his partner are unwittingly thrown into the race to find the sun first, only for Keith to discover, to his dismay, that it may be closer than he could’ve ever wanted.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What started as a small, self-indulgent idea nearly two months ago has turned into this. Many thanks to my darling, dearest Julie (@Rendevok), because without her many parts of this just simply would not make sense. I hope y'all enjoy!

It started, as these things often do, with a dream.

Keith was no stranger to dreams such as these anymore, having encountered them for as long as he could dream (and it felt even longer than that sometimes). It started with what was familiar--an all-encompassing, never ending darkness, which seemed more like a blank canvas than a far-reaching and incomprehensible stretch of space. It was into this, this cold, apathetic absence of light, that Keith was born. It was all he and so many others had ever known. But then came the stories: stories of a sky bespeckled with countless stars, sometimes likened to fireflies, and other times to glittering jewels. It was something Keith himself had never seen, but dreamed of vividly here. The stars seemed just as endless as the darkness itself, and Keith wondered, not for the first time, how it was the universe didn’t appear incredibly bright, instead of overwhelmingly dim. He didn’t think about it for too long, however, for once the stars had arranged themselves just so, Keith began to walk.

It wasn’t an aimless walk, but with nothing but stars and darkness around him, it was hard to say where he was going. Still, he walked with purpose, though he had no idea what, exactly, that purpose was. It was one of those things that Keith simply attributed to dream-logic, and moved on from. And move on he did, on and on, without encountering a single one of the numerous stars that so densely populated the surrounding skies. It was curious to him that he should be so close, yet so far to so many stars, more than he’d seen in his entire lifetime--this, too, he moved on from. He moved on from the insistent cold that pressed in from all sides; so too did he move on from the wandering dots of light that seemed only a little less distant than the others. It wasn’t that he was particularly uncaring towards everything he saw and experienced here, nor was his apathy born from any ill-will. It was simply that--apathy.

When Keith awoke from his dream, the stars, save for a sparse few, disappeared from the sky, but he was quite as alone as he had been before. He reached over with a sleepy hand to turn off his alarm, which told him it was precisely eight in the morning in spite of the still dark sky. This too was familiar to Keith, perhaps just as familiar as his dream, which felt more like a memory at this point in his life. Keith, like so many others, had never known any other sky than this one, dark and nearly blank. According to his parents, the so-called daytime hours had once been filled with light and warmth, thanks to the sun. Keith had seen plenty of pictures of a bright blue sky with the biggest and brightest light he’d ever seen--it was hard to place it in reality. And the reality was, for Keith’s entire life, the earth had been nothing but a cold and dark place, becoming increasingly unsuited for human habitation.

The stories, no matter who they were told by, were much the same. Around the time Keith had been born, the stars, the planets, and the sun and moon, had all fallen from the sky. There were plenty of pictures detailing the event, caught by people who had yet to understand the full consequences of the marvelous sight. Without the sun, the temperature on the planet cooled rapidly, and plants could no longer flourish. Without the moon, the tides of the ocean ceased, currents changed wildly, and much of the marine wildlife died off. The first few years after the fall, as Keith understood it, had been the most disastrous. Even now, though things seemed reasonably well, Keith knew they were steadily worsening. And they would only continue to do so as long as the sun and the moon were gone from the sky. The only thing that kept humanity from withering away along with everything else was their own determination to survive. That, and wishes.

Shortly after the fall of all the celestial bodies, and the discovery that the stars could be found and held in one’s hand, it was found that stars could indeed, as fairy tales had suggested, grant wishes. Each star could grant one wish--once granted, the star would disappear. It didn’t seem to matter whether the wish was realistic or not, but it did seem that a single star did not have the power to restore the entire sky. That aside, with so many stars, many people didn’t give a second thought to making wishes on multiple stars. Other people, such as Keith’s employers, thought otherwise. The Celestial Replacement Bureau was of the opinion that all celestial bodies must be returned to the sky, and that it was humanity’s duty to do so. With so many stars and so few people to replace them, however, they did at least grant each of their employees one, and only one, star, always a smaller, dimmer one that wasn’t likely to be missed once the sky was returned to its former glory. One star per person, they decided, was reasonable.

Keith kept his one allotted star in a small flask, attached to a black cord that he wore around his neck. He’d had it for over a year now, usually tucked away under his many layers of clothing, lest he be assaulted with unwanted questions of “Well, why haven’t you wished for anything yet? Surely there must be something you want?” Keith had neither the time nor the patience to indulge in such questions, especially when the answer would be something along the lines of, “...I don’t know.” Because really, what was there that Keith wanted that he couldn’t obtain without a wish? Certainly he’d like to have his father back, but there were just some things that wishes couldn’t do. The only other thing Keith might be able to think of was for Shiro’s happiness, but that, too, seemed like something a little too complex for a mere star to handle.

Half an hour after waking up, Keith made his way to the headquarters of the Celestial Replacement Bureau. Perhaps he was imagining it, but Keith thought it was a little chillier than normal today, even by his own standards (Keith often found that he didn’t get as cold as easily as other people--perhaps a benefit of being born without the sun, he supposed). He hurried the rest of the way to the Bureau, not looking forward to a chilly day of searching. In his haste he ate it on a slippery patch of ice on the sidewalk, which was witnessed by someone nearby who laughed loudly at the sight. This further soured Keith’s mood as he buried his face into his scarf and trudged the rest of the way to work; hopefully, he thought, the day didn’t continue in this manner.

And at first, it seemed as though it wouldn’t. When he entered the Bureau headquarters, relieved by the rush of warmth that met his face, he was met immediately by Pidge, who looked incredibly excited about something.

“Keith!” she called without preamble as she ran up to him. “So, one of the stars you found yesterday, the one that was a bit brighter than the others?”

“Yeah?” Keith prompted, remembering the one. He had been able to feel its warmth even through his gloved hands (he may or may not have held the marble sized star in his hand for the rest of his shift that day, curious about the intense heat it was radiating).

“Well, I’m not a hundred percent sure yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s Antares!” she revealed with a proud puff.

Keith rattled his brain for the name--it sounded familiar. “That’s… a constellation star, right? From Scorpius?”

Pidge nodded eagerly. “Yep! I’m doing the final analysis today, but like I said, I’m pretty sure it’s Antares. The star you found is one of the brightest I’ve ever seen, I’m honestly shocked that it hasn’t been found until now, but then again, a lot of constellation stars haven’t been found yet despite being some of the brightest stars in the sky, heck, Sirius hasn’t even been found yet and that’s supposed to be the brightest star in the night sky, but I guess if they’re so easy to find people might’ve used them for wishes already…”

Pidge continued to ramble as they made their way past the front desk, towards the searcher’s department. It was an established dynamic between the two of them: Pidge would ramble about whatever happened to be on her mind, and Keith would listen enthusiastically (and by enthusiastically, it was meant that he occasionally gave approving hums and nods of agreement). They parted ways as soon as they reached the searcher’s department, as Pidge worked in a different department, but she assured Keith that she would know with certainty (as if she already didn’t) the identity of the star by the time he returned from his searching.

Searching, however, was not quite the right word for it in Keith’s mind. Collecting was more like it. As a general searcher, it was Keith’s job to find as many stars as he could within the space of a single shift and turn them into the analyst’s department, where Pidge worked. There, as the name implied, stars were analyzed and matched up with the billions of possible stars in past star charts, so that they could then be replaced in the sky in their proper position. Replacing, in Keith’s mind, was likely the hardest job of all, a job that he had wanted in the first place more than searching, as it required high altitude flying (among other things), something Keith loved to do--unfortunately, he was required to do some time as a searcher to begin with. Today, however, might see the beginning of a change in that.

Shiro was already at his desk when Keith walked in, as was usual. Keith immediately knew something was off when Shiro didn’t greet him with a too-cheerful, “Good morning!” when he saw Keith.

“Something wrong?” Keith asked.

Shiro leveled him with a frown. “Your evaluation came back.”

Keith held his breath. Shiro didn’t want him to become a replacer, but he also didn’t want Keith staying in one place for his sake. Keith could’ve applied an entire six months earlier to start training to become a replacer, but put it off in order to stay close to Shiro, since Shiro had outright refused to let Keith move in with him (“I don’t need anyone to take care of me Keith,” Shiro had insisted when Keith brought it up. “I’ll be fine.”). Now that he was entirely convinced that Shiro would, in fact, be fine, Keith began the application process, which started with a mental evaluation. And by the look on Shiro’s face, it had not gone well.

“And?” Keith prompted, eager to know if he’d be able to move to the next step or not.

Shiro shook his head. “You’ve been denied.”

“What?!” Keith exclaimed, perhaps a little louder than he should have, given the heads that turned their way. “Why?” he asked, a little quieter.

“According to your evaluation, you’re showing early signs of dark fever,” Shiro told him in a low voice.

Keith scowled. “I am not!”

“Keith,” Shiro started seriously. “Trust me when I say I know how you feel.”

At that, Keith pressed his lips tightly together, physically restraining himself from saying anything more as Shiro continued.

“Like I said, it’s only early signs, and some of the things they have down as being early warning signs might not even be due to dark fever--social withdrawal, unwilling to work with others, an increasing dedication to your job--not to mention the risk factors, like the fact that you live alone, you refuse to work with a partner, and you work past the end of your shift frequently,” Shiro listed off, flipping through the pages of the lengthy evaluation. On every page, Keith could see a huge, red “DENIED” stamp. It was disheartening, to say the least.

“All those things, that’s just you. What I’m most concerned about,” Shiro continued with emphasis. “Is the on-site observations they made. Staring off into the sky for more than five consecutive minutes, flying far higher than necessary for a searcher--these aren’t things I would’ve liked to hear about from an evaluation.”

Keith crossed his arms, frowning deeply but still not saying anything. The high flying was absolutely ridiculous as a warning sign of dark fever--Keith just liked to fly, that was it! But the gazing into the sky for long stretches of time… that he could grant them. It wasn’t as if he wanted to plunge right into the inky blackness, as those with dark fever often did, but there was an undeniable pull towards it all the same, a small tug in his gut that drew him higher and higher into the sky. But it wasn’t dark fever, of that he was certain. Not that he was about to argue about it with Shiro, of all people.

“You have two choices,” Shiro said, when it was clear Keith wasn’t going to say another word. “Either you go through counselling, during which time you’d be grounded--”

“No!” Keith objected immediately. “Absolutely not!”

“Or,” Shiro continued pointedly. “You can continue your work as a searcher--with a partner. With either option, you have to wait at least three months to apply again.”

So that was it. Either he was grounded or he had to get a babysitter. Neither option was particularly appealing to Keith. Certainly he could fly after hours if he chose the first option, when the Bureau wasn’t watching, but Shiro was bound to check on him--disappointing Shiro would be far worse than breaking any rules set by the Bureau. Not to mention, the counselors employed by the Bureau were not Keith’s favorite people. During his initial evaluation to become a searcher, the counselor he’d been assigned to had encouraged him in flowery terms to open up to others and “find a light in his life for which to strive”. So that option was definitely a no-go. To most, having a partner wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but if there was one thing Keith was confident in, it was that no one could match his pace. He could outfly anyone in the Bureau, save for Shiro, and having a partner was guaranteed to slow him down. Keith was certain that he would likely end up dying of boredom quicker than he might ever die of dark fever.

“Keith?” Shiro questioned. The implication, it appeared, was that decision had to be made now. As his supervisor, Shiro had every right to make that decision for Keith if he saw fit. As it was, he respected Keith enough to make this decision for himself.

Keith sighed deeply. “I guess… I’ll try having a partner.”

Shiro smiled. “You say that like it’s the end of the world.”

“I just--work better alone,” Keith said, feeling a little like a petulant child.

“Don’t worry,” Shiro assured him in a soft voice. “Having a partner isn’t so bad.”

That being said, Keith would have to wait a bit while Shiro found another solo searcher who might be a suitable partner for Keith. Granted, Shiro could’ve just as well stuck Keith with whichever poor sap happened to be closest at the time--many other supervisors did. But this consideration, timely as it was, was what set Shiro apart from other supervisors. Searchers under his charge, whether solo or partnered, tended to yield better results than those of other supervisors. He trusted Shiro to find the most tolerable person to be stuck with for the next three months--Keith was determined that it shouldn’t be any longer than that, no matter what.

While Shiro deliberated, Keith headed to what Bureau workers affectionately referred to as the broom closet. It was hardly as cramped or musty as the name implied, but it was, in fact, full of brooms, a key item in Keith’s line of work. Shortly after it was discovered that the stars could grant wishes, a young child had wished to use brooms to fly, as they’d seen in a picture book or movie depicting a young girl doing such a thing. Or so the stories went. As it happened, children made the best wishmakers, and so the wish echoed across the globe, granting flight to all brooms, for all people. The Bureau took advantage of this, seeing it as a cheap and convenient way for searchers and replacers alike to do their job quickly and efficiently. The downside was that everyone had put on a few extra layers to keep out the chill, but otherwise, it was a pretty good deal.

Keith in particular found a new sense of freedom when soaring through the air on a broom. It was all too easy, sometimes, to forget the broom underneath him and imagine he was gliding through the air all on his own, wind whipping at his cheeks in such a way that left them flushed, both with biting cold and sheer excitement. In all the Bureau, perhaps only Shiro could outfly Keith anymore, and that was only because Shiro had been the one to teach Keith how to fly in the first place. But then, Shiro hadn’t flown in a while now--not exactly the way Keith had been hoping to catch up to him. Regardless, it wasn’t necessarily out of malice or arrogance that Keith thought a partner would only slow him down. It was just a matter of fact, was all.

He had just checked out a broom and was about to head back to the searcher’s department when, out of nowhere, a solid body appeared in his path, and before he could stop himself, he bumped into the person, hard enough to accidentally knock the other person over. Blinking rapidly--Keith wasn’t normally so careless--a flash of annoyance ran through him. Was today just going to be a string of minor inconveniences?

“Oh, sure, I’m fine, no big deal,” the stranger griped, pushing himself back up, making a grand show of dusting himself off. “Watch where you’re--hey, aren’t you the guy that totally ate it on the ice earlier?”

Keith scowled at the reminder of that. He was certain there was going to be a bruise on his hip and arm from that. Peering curiously at the stranger, he found the face a little familiar. “Aren’t you the guy that laughed at me instead of helping?”

“Yes I was,” the young man declared with pride, as though laughing at a stranger’s misfortune was something to be proud of. “I guess this makes us even then, huh?”

Keith’s frown deepened as he stalked past the young man without another word, leaving him to squawk indignantly behind him. Something about how Keith needed to lighten up, or something. Keith didn’t have time for people that wanted to play games though. All he needed to do was focus on getting through these next few months and passing his next evaluation. Distractions and detours were not an option.

When he returned to the searcher’s department, Shiro was still shuffling through paper after paper, carefully considering each solo searcher. He knew every searcher personally, so really the papers weren’t necessary--no doubt they just helped him organize his thoughts. When he noticed Keith, he shoved all the papers together in a single pile.

“I think I’ve just about got it narrowed down, but the person I have in mind hasn’t checked in yet,” Shiro explained.

Keith frowned. “Really? You’re going to stick me with someone who’s already late?”

“He’s not that bad,” Shiro assured him. “After you, he’s probably one of the best searchers in the department. He’s the one that found Rigel, one of the constellation stars from Leo…”

At Keith’s blank stare, Shiro trailed off and laughed a little. “You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?” Keith shook his head. “You really need to pay a little more attention to what’s going on around you. Anyways, I’ll have a little mercy today since you have a big area to start searching today. It’s off the coast, so I need you to get started sooner rather than later. I’ll send him along when he gets here.”

Keith breathed a sigh of relief. Freedom, if only for a little while longer! He took the map handed to him by Shiro, and hurried out the door, eager to have as much time to himself before he met his inevitable partner. He pulled up his scarf and pulled his goggles over his eyes, covering up most of his face from the brutal cold. He checked the map once more, making sure he had the right heading before he took to the air, and then made sure he had everything a searcher ought to have: emergency pager, collection lantern (attached securely to the front of his broom), his map and compass tucked securely in one of his side pouches--and, on a personal note, he made sure that his personal wish-star was still attached firmly to the cord around his neck, safely tucked under all the layers he wore. When everything seemed good to go, go he did, taking off like a bullet and nearly whooping with delight as a sense of near-weightlessness overtook him. How in the world could he be at risk for dark fever when he still had so much joy in him?

For dark fever, for all that it was referred to as a fever, was a mental illness akin to depression, borne from the fact that humans were not meant to live in darkness, much less spend too much time contemplating infinity. Unfortunately, time and darkness were in abundance these days, and people who flew often, such as searchers and replacers, were particularly susceptible to the illness. People who’d suffered from it often described a sort of empty feeling within them, empty, but not so empty that there wasn’t something that drew them towards the infinite black of the sky, alluring and, as some people admitted, promising. Surely, they thought, there must be something beyond it. Beyond the sphere where the stars resided, there must be a place where light was the default. Too often that yearning had drawn people into the darkness, never to return. It was frightening, to say the least. And Keith was certain he’d never fall victim to it. Or at least, he hoped he never would. It would be naive to think himself completely immune, but he just didn’t feel so strong an urge to traverse the sky beyond the stars. There was curiosity, perhaps. But not an irrational need. For now, Keith thought, he was safe.

He flew only just over the tops of buildings, keeping in mind his evaluation, and how the people evaluating him had thought he’d flown too high for a searcher, which frankly was stupid in Keith’s mind. There was a difference between someone determined to fly higher than humans ought, and a searcher just wanting to see the cities from far above, imagining that maybe once the night sky looked like them, seemingly infinite dots of light against a pitch black canvas. He wondered if the stars, too, clustered together and looked like a blurry amalgamation of light in the sky. Or perhaps, he thought, maybe they looked like the sunflower fields that dotted the countryside. It was the wish of a creative mind that sunflowers imitate their namesake--all the sunflowers in the world couldn’t warm the entire earth, but they could warm a hearth, which was enough for many homes. From above, Keith could see nearly every individual sunflower, even in the larger fields. It was quite a sight to behold, one of Keith’s favorite things about this frost ridden world that was his home.

By broom, as the crow flew, it took about half an hour to reach the coast--for most people. Keith took pride in the fact that it took him no more than twenty minutes, and that was a slow day for him. He leaned down close over his broom, the wind whipping all around him as he picked up speed. It was almost disappointing when he reached his destination--it felt like he could go on forever like that, even with the cold. Keith hovered low over the beach, reaching for his map to make sure he had the right area--not that being strict with areas was necessarily a thing, but it helped keep things organized. The ocean was still as he held a light over the map. He’d been told that once the ocean had been a lively place, with waves crashing against the sands, some big, others small. Now, without the sun and moon, it was almost as still as the sky, especially farther out. It could be dangerous for searchers. More than one had drowned in the ocean trying to get to the sky--another unfortunate result of dark fever. That wasn’t something Keith worried about though, especially as he checked again to make sure his collection lantern was secure on the front of his broom. As he collected stars, they would shine together in his lantern--water reflected the light; the sky did not.

With everything still in order, Keith set to work. Finding stars, even as small as they were, was not so hard in a place like this. Even after all these years, there were still many stars to be found, and on the coast, so removed from urban environments, there was no artificial light to interfere. He started right along the shoreline, where stars mingled with grains of sand. Keith, on more than one occasion, had heard it said that there were more stars in the sky than there were grains of sand on the entire earth. Frankly the idea seemed ludicrous to Keith. If that was the case then, how was every surface on the earth not covered in stars? Perhaps they had been, when the stars first fell, he considered as he dumped a handful of stars (mixed with a little bit of sand) into his lantern. What a sight that must’ve been.

Having found as many stars as he could within the sand (he was certain there were more, just under the surface, but he didn’t quite have the patience to dig through the sand), Keith meandered over the open water, still as glass and stretching out to meet the sky. It was lucky for searchers that stars floated in water, otherwise ocean searching would be a lot more tedious. Still, plucking them out of freezing cold water wasn’t the greatest thing in the world. Careful as he was, Keith’s gloves still managed to get soaked through. He had a spare pair in one of his pouches, but he had an entire shift to get through. Next time, he told himself, either waterproof gloves or something to pick up the stars with, like a net or something. Plenty of searchers had tools like that. 

So focused on his work and his increasingly cold hands, Keith quite forgot that he was supposed to have a partner arriving at any moment. That is, until he was reaching out for another star, and they swooped right in front of him, snatching it almost literally right out from under his nose. Taken aback and startled half to death, Keith gripped his broom tight, steadying himself before he fell into the water. The new arrival let out a hearty shout, sounding quite at their leisure as they looped over Keith, collected star held aloft, casting a soft glow that was the only reason Keith could track him through the sky. After tucking the star securely in their pocket, the new arrival came to a dramatic stop in front of Keith, looking almost as though he were lounging on his broom.

“Hey,” he greeted easily, his voice sounding annoyingly familiar. “Name’s Lance.”

Keith didn’t bother to return the greeting, maneuvering his broom around Lance so he could continue working. Lance took it in stride, wheeling himself around to fly up beside Keith.

“You are Keith, right?” he asked.

Keith huffed. He entertained a brief notion of telling this guy that, no, he had the wrong guy, but Shiro would no doubt have his head for that. “Yeah, that’s me,” he said reluctantly.

“Cool,” Lance replied. “I was a little worried I might not find you, what with you having a head start and all, and it’s all dark, and it’s the ocean, and Shiro said you work fast--”

“Are you going to work, or are you just going to talk my ear off the entire shift?” Keith interrupted, gliding down to snatch another two stars.

“Can’t I do both?” Lance asked, flying down with Keith in tandem, grabbing another couple stars that Keith hadn’t seen.

“I’d rather you just work,” Keith told him.

“Aw, come on, Keith, we’re partners now--”

“Partners,” Keith cut him off shortly. “Not friends.”

“Okay, jeez, just trying to make things not completely horrible,” Lance said as he turned into a graceful dive to grab a star that Keith only saw as Lance picked it up.

“You could accomplish that by not talking,” Keith suggested, trying to focus on searching for stars.

Lance, unfortunately, did not take kindly to that statement. He squawked and stuttered and shouted something about how Keith needed to lighten up, literally and figuratively, and it was at that, that a face clicked into place with that voice that had seemed so familiar--it didn’t make things better.

“Wait a second--you’re that guy I ran into in the hallway, the one that laughed at me for slipping on ice,” Keith said, turning to look at the silhouette that was clearly wearing more jackets than necessary.

“I am?” Lance started, a bit unawares. “What are you--oh! You’re that guy! With the bad hair!”

Keith grimaced. “Really? That’s what you’re going for?”

Even in the dim light of his collected stars, he could see Lance shrug. “It’s true.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just stay out of my way.”

He was gratified when Lance said nothing as Keith flew a little farther out, and even more so when Lance didn’t fly next to him as he’d been trying to. Keith was about to breathe a sigh of relief--maybe this Lance guy would leave him alone, be his partner in name only. But then, just as he was diving down to grab another star, Lance once more shot in front of Keith, swiping the star before he could. Keith frowned, but said nothing as he spotted another star, and moved to collect that instead. Here, Lance flew just in front of him, blocking him from getting the star as he took it for his own. Keith scowled, but still restrained himself from lashing out. The third time it happened, however, Keith was quite beside himself.

“Will you stay out of my way?!” he demanded of Lance.

Lance turned to him with an unaffected air, humming as though he hardly noticed Keith at all. “Oh, were you working here? I didn’t notice.”

So, Keith realized, he wanted to play that game, huh? In that case, he thought, hunkering low over his broom, this guy was in for a rude awakening. He spotted another star only a split second after Lance, giving Lance the barest of headstarts, but it didn’t matter. Keith sliced through the air like a comet, and reached the star well before Lance did, adding it to his lantern with a satisfied smirk. He heard Lance’s impatient huff, quiet as it was, and felt even more pleased with himself. He decided to wait for Lance to spot the next star, and spot he did, darting towards it in the futile hope he might get to it before Keith. Keith was all too happy to prove to him just how good a flier he was, and got the star before Lance again. Several times they repeated this, Keith sometimes following Lance without even seeing a star--it seemed Lance had a knack for being able to spot the dimmer stars. Even so, Keith was faster than Lance. Once he buckled down, he got the stars before Lance, every time.

It took a bit longer than it had with Keith, but Lance finally seemed to lose his patience. “Will you cut that out?!” he finally shouted, hovering just over the water.

“Hm?” Keith hummed, feigning ignorance just as Lance had. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m just doing my job.”

“You do so know what I’m talking about!” Lance insisted, trailing after Keith as he continued to wind his leisurely way through the assigned area.

Suddenly, Lance yelped and took a nosedive, a sure sign that he’d found a star. Keith didn’t see one yet, but as he’d learned, Lance had a knack for spotting the dimmer stars, perhaps because he didn’t use the standard lantern collector, instead stuffing all his found stars into his pouches or pockets, thus eliminating the amount of light interference. Keith followed him easily, waiting for the star to come into his sight. He thought perhaps it might be a trick, but Lance had yet to pull up--perhaps it was an especially dim star. Regardless, Keith refused to let Lance win it. He increased his speed--beside him, Lance did the same.

He realized too late that it had indeed been a trick, but it didn’t work out quite the way that Lance had probably been hoping. At their speed, neither of them were able to pull up quite in time, and so smacked painfully into the cold water. It took every ounce of Keith’s willpower not to follow his instincts for once and suck in a breath as ice wormed its way into all of his senses. Every inch of him was screaming in protest, all his muscles so desperately trying to reject the cold that it made it difficult for him to push himself back up to the surface. He broke the surface with a shuddering gasp, and immediately looked for his broom. The lantern, giving off light from his collected stars, made that an easy task, and beside him, Lance had already found his own broom, struggling to get out of the water as his teeth chattered violently. Had all this not been Lance’s fault, Keith might’ve asked if he was okay, and maybe even offered to help him out if he needed. As it was, it didn’t look like Lance was going to die, so Keith pushed himself up into the air, waiting only a moment to see that Lance made it into the air himself before making a beeline back to the Bureau. Neither of them said a word to each other, but occasionally Lance would wheeze and huff and puff in a weak effort to stave off the cold. Keith was shivering violently, but it wasn’t as bad as it ought to have been. That, or he was already becoming numb to the sensation, in which case he needed to get back and changed into dry clothes sooner rather than later.

It was a bit of a task, balancing the desire to get back to the Bureau as quickly as possible and not going so fast that they turned to blocks of ice on their brooms, but they managed, in a manner of speaking. Their legs were so stiff by the time they landed that they both fell over, with Lance stumbling and crashing into Keith when they tried to stand up again (“Watch what you’re doing!” “You watch what you’re doing!”). They were quite a sight to behold when they stomped into the Bureau, a couple hours before the end of their shift and still dripping wet and shivering. To say that Shiro was surprised was practically a given, but he held his composure remarkably well, the only indication that he was perplexed by this situation his raised eyebrows and a slight twitching at one of the corners of his mouth.

“You two look like you had fun,” he remarked casually, his voice steady and even. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“Keith’s fault!” Lance stammered out immediately.

“What?! It was completely your fault!” Keith objected immediately, astounded that Lance could even think to make such a childish accusation.

“You’re the one who made it all competitive!”

“You’re the one who decided to trick me into thinking there was a star when there wasn’t!”

“That’s enough,” Shiro cut in sternly. “Turn in your stars and go home early, both of you.”

His tone left no room for argument, so the two of them promptly did as they were told, bumping into each other as they both reached the door at the same time. They pushed at each other and tried to walk in front of the other, only to find their paces annoyingly matched until they reached the analyst’s department. They griped at each other to get out of their space, only to have it turn into another back and forth of “You!” “No, you!”. Keith was more than grateful to immediately seek out Pidge while Lance, finally, took an opposite direction.

Pidge was not as able as Shiro in regards to maintaining any sort of composure. At first, she was concerned. “What in the world happened?”

Keith jerked his head in Lance’s direction. “He happened.”

Pidge leaned over her desk to peer at the object of Keith’s ire, and then got a knowing look on her face. “I understand.”

“You know him?” Keith asked as he carefully spilled the stars from his lantern onto her desk.

“I know pretty much all the searchers,” Pidge replied, already sorting the stars by color. “He’s… a bit much.”

“To say the least,” Keith scoffed.

“But wait, I thought you were a solo searcher, him too. Did he wander into your area on accident or something?” Pidge asked.

Keith sighed deeply, not looking forward to having to explain this. It made it seem more real than he would like. “He’s… my partner.”

“Your what now?!” Pidge exclaimed, nearly knocking a few stars off of her desk. Keith shushed her hurriedly, helping her to keep all the stars on her desk. “But you’re like, the lone wolf, you’ve never wanted a partner before--”

“I know, I know,” Keith interrupted, running a still shivering hand through his dripping wet hair. He took a another deep breath. “Remember how I applied to start replacer training?”

Pidge nodded.

“My evaluation didn’t go so well, so I had two choices--get grounded, or get a partner. Shiro chose him, not me, but I have no idea why he would choose him of all people,” Keith explained, leaning against the desk as he crossed his arms.

Pidge hummed, glancing at Lance again. “Well, I can see why he chose him.”

“You can?”

She nodded, taking a closer look at some of the stars that were sorted into a blue-white pile. “Skill wise, he’s a close match to you. Maybe not as good a flier, but he can see things other people can’t, mostly because he always stuffs the stars he collects away so that he doesn’t have any light interference. Even then, his ability to find dimmer stars is pretty incredible--don’t tell him I said that though.”

“Trust me, I won’t,” Keith assured her. Lance had enough of a swelled head as it was, it seemed. No need to inflate it any further.

“Anyways, he’s a bit much to handle, but Hunk seems to think he’s alright,” Pidge continued, further sorting the stars by spectral class as she inspected them a bit more closely.

“Hunk thinks everyone’s alright,” Keith argued.

“Not true, there were those two snatchers that managed to pose as searchers for a while--literally no one else suspected them until they’d already gotten away with a boxful of stars. Hunk’s just a chill guy,” Pidge reminded him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Keith agreed, not really in the mood to spend too much time gossiping about people. He needed to get home and change into dry clothes before he caught a cold or something--it always took him forever to recover from something even as harmless as a case of sniffles. “I’m off, see you tomorrow.”

“Oh, wait, Keith!” Pidge called before he could get too far. “Remember how I said that one star might be Antares?”

“Yeah?”

She gave him a thumbs up. “One hundred percent confirmed. Already put in the paperwork and everything, should be showing up on your record here in a few days.”

He waved a hand at her in thanks, and then made his way to the broom closet to turn his broom back in, and then finally headed home, his clothes uncomfortably damp and smelling of salt and old seaweed. He was very aware of the ice on the sidewalk on his way back, and even glanced around to make sure that Lance wasn’t nearby watching him carefully sidle around the ice, irritated that even after Lance was long gone he still managed to annoy Keith. 

When he got home he wasted no time in blasting the heat and stripping himself bare of all his soaked clothing. Logic told him that he ought to wash off the sea smell and properly dry his hair, but he was already exhausted. Surely, he thought, it would be fine to just lie down for a little while, wrapped up in all the blankets he owned. After all, it would help warm him up, which was really the most important thing to do right now. And so he curled up on his bed, only his face and a single hand free from the pile of blankets he’d collected, idly browsing social media. A message from Shiro read that he’d be over after his shift with something warm to eat. Good, Keith thought, they could have a discussion about his decision making process then.

Ultimately, despite his quiet insistances to himself that he desperately needed to shower before falling asleep, Keith drifted off, falling into the sort of deep sleep that only comes after being exposed to extreme cold. He found himself in that dream place of his again, walking in familiar cold and familiar dark. Only this time, it didn’t seem quite as cold. Odd, Keith thought. Every single dream like this, without fail, had been fairly consistent. Once, a deep blue wandering light had passed a little closer than others, but the wandering lights themselves were nothing new, overall. Keith looked around, trying to to determine the cause for this increase in warmth. It wasn’t that he didn’t welcome it--on the contrary, it was quite a nice change, only he was very curious as to where it was coming from.

After hardly a second of looking, he noticed a star, which had looked like any other around him until now. Now it was closer, if only slightly. But the change was enough for Keith to marvel at the light, bask in the soft glow of warmth it now radiated on him. It was a curious, but pleasant change. Only eventually the warmth got to be too much, quickly escalating into a blazing heat that Keith found overwhelming. It was stifling, overbearing, and just wouldn’t stop--

Keith woke from his dream slowly, realizing that the unbearable heat wasn’t a result of his dream, but of the heat that he’d left on high. Even after a dip into icy cold waters, Keith wasn’t much one for too much heat, preferring it a little colder than most. After turning the heat back down, he wrapped himself up in a single blanket and sat on the edge of his bed, bleary eyed and contemplative. Certainly other dreams had been affected by real life happenings, that in itself wasn’t so strange, but for this particular dream to have taken on a new element… that wasn’t something that had happened in years. And while Keith didn’t normally consider himself superstitious, he couldn’t help but notices that changes in that dream usually preceded drastic changes in his life, usually for the worse. And usually, changes in the dream were far more subtle than that. To have experienced such intense heat and light in a dream that was normally cold and dark--Keith couldn’t help but feel a little anxious, wondering what on earth could possibly bring such intensity in his life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! I would be remiss if I didn't mention the wonderful Angie (@stellalights) for her encouragement and support during the creation of this story.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy!

Keith had quite lost track of the time, milling about in his thoughts as he sat at the edge of the bed clad in nothing but a blanket, when he heard the click of the lock of his front door. Shiro had long since foregone the need to knock (although even after Keith had given him a spare key to his apartment, Shiro had still insisted on the nicety--it was Keith that told him time and again that it simply wasn’t necessary), but he at least called out to Keith when he walked in. Keith called back, saying he’d be out of his room in a moment as he scrambled to throw on some sweats and a t-shirt. He found Shiro in the kitchen already putting what looked to be a tupperware of hearty stew in the microwave. 

Shiro raised an eyebrow at the state of Keith’s hair, bed-messed and sticking up at every angle. “You didn’t dry your hair before lying down?”

Keith looked away and shrugged.

“Keith…” Shiro crossed his arms, looking gentle but stern.

“I know, I know, I’ll be fine,” Keith insisted, patting at his hair, trying to get it to lie down in such a way that it didn’t look like a bird’s nest.

Shiro raised his eyebrows pointedly, but said nothing. He took the stew from the microwave and handed it to Keith, who devoured it promptly. It wasn’t until he scraped the bottom of the plasticware that he remembered he had something very important to discuss with Shiro.

“Oh yeah,” he said past the last mouthful of vegetables. “Why him, of all people?”

“Who?”

Keith scowled. “Lance.”

“Ah…” Shiro cracked a wry smile. “I thought you wanted someone that could keep up with you.”

“Yes, I want that, not someone who dumps me into the ocean the first chance he gets!” Keith exclaimed.

Shiro put a hand over his mouth, but it was all too clear he was laughing.

“Shiro, seriously, I can’t work with him,” he said over Shiro’s laughter.

“Come on Keith, I can’t rotate you through a different person every day until you can reapply for replacer trainer,” Shiro told him once he’d overcome his giggles, but he was still grinning.

“I’m not asking you to--how about this, forget finding someone that can keep up with me, just pair me up with someone that is at least tolerable,” Keith pleaded. “This guy, Lance, he talks too much, he treats everything like a game, he’s full of himself… What?!”

Shiro had started laughing again, not even bothering to try to hide it this time. “Sorry, I’ve just never seen you so riled up before. I’m sure he’s not as bad as you think.”

“Have you even met this guy?” Keith asked.

“Keith, I’m his supervisor,” Shiro pointed out with a snort.

“Well--supervise him better!”

Shiro laughed again, much to Keith’s ire.

“Alright, how about this: you stick with him for a week, just one week, and if by the end of the week you still can’t stand him, I’ll look for someone else. Sound good?” Shiro offered.

It was more than good, the rational part of Keith’s mind said, but the part of him that could still hear Lance’s childish teasing was feeling petulant and wanted nothing more than to demand that another partner be found immediately. Keith took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose in an effort to not throw what would essentially be a tantrum. Shiro waited patiently all the while.

“Okay,” Keith finally said. “I will try not to strangle him for a whole week.”

“Thank you. Now, tell me honestly, how did you both ending up falling into the water?”

Keith, somehow, started before they’d officially become partners, telling Shiro about his unfortunate fall on the ice that Lance had laughed at, and then the incident just outside the broom closet. He told him in vivid detail about Lance’s lackadaisical attitude towards just about everything, how he treated star collecting like a game to be won, and admitted that perhaps he’d risen to Lance’s bait too easily, but still, Lance could’ve just backed off for at least a little bit instead of trying to get back at Keith for simply being a better flier--

Keith stopped abruptly when he realized he had been rambling. He sighed, and flopped backwards onto the couch, insisting that he wouldn’t talk anymore about Lance. He glanced at Shiro, who seemed quite at ease and very amused by something.

“What?” he demanded.

Shiro shrugged. “It’s just been a while since I’ve seen you so… enthusiastic?”

“Enthusiastic? Really? I’m enthusiastic about some puffed-up--arrogant--?” Keith gestured wildly with his hands when his words failed. The point was, enthusiastic was not what he felt right now.

“Right, alright, we can drop it,” Shiro said, sitting on the opposite end of the couch and dropping a foot in Keith’s lap.

They engaged in a brief tussle where Keith tried to get Shiro’s feet off of him, while Shiro did everything in his power to make sure that at least one foot was touching Keith. After a few moments, Keith slumped back on the couch, defeated and being used as a very nice foot rest, according to Shiro. They flipped through some TV, chatting idly about everything and nothing. Shiro talked about an interesting article he’d read during his shift about a breed of bioluminescent plants that didn’t require sunlight to flourish. Keith argued that such measures could become obsolete when the sun was found, but Shiro pointed out that there was no guarantee as to when that might be. Keith agreed, and clarified that he meant there was no telling what would happen to those sorts of plants once the sun did return. How dependent would the earth become on them in the meantime? Their conversation went on like that for some time, the TV forgotten and left on some old nature documentary that had been recorded some time before the fall. The hours slipped away easily, and soon enough Shiro had to leave, but not before making Keith promise to call in if he felt too sick to work (to which Keith insisted he would be fine, although his head was already pounding and eyes aching--he brushed it off as fatigue).

The mention of work reminded Keith of the deal he’d made with Shiro: one week with Lance as his partner, that was all he had to make it through. He wondered, almost hopefully, if it would count if he was sick for most of that time. Knowing Shiro, probably not, but if Keith did catch a cold from that unplanned swim, he might as well make the most of it and give it a shot anyways. Not that he wanted to get sick--for some reason even the barest of sniffles would catch him in a vice grip and refuse to leave for far longer than normal. As far as any doctors had been able to tell Keith, he was completely healthy and average, so why Keith was so severely affected when he got sick was a mystery. Even with this disposition, Keith turned down the heat (which had been turned up just a little during Shiro’s visit) and bedded down under a single blanket. As he drifted off to sleep, his only hope was that the next day would be at least a little more tolerable than this one.

As fate would have it, the day started decidedly worse than the one before it. Keith had woken up several times throughout the course of the night, feeling markedly worse each time. The last time he woke up, a few hours before his alarm was set to go off, he reluctantly pulled himself out of bed to take some medicine. While it seemed to do the trick, granting him a few blissful hours of solid sleep, it did it a little too well, and Keith awoke in a panic when he realized he’d slept past his alarm. He wasn’t late for work yet, but he would be no matter how he rushed. He texted Shiro to let him know as much as he threw on his many layers, throwing on an extra layer even though he knew it would have him sweating by the end of the day. Better to try and keep out the chill, if he was already sick.

He practically ran to the Bureau, nearly slipping on ice again but thankfully saving himself from another bruising. When he burst into the searcher’s department, huffing and puffing and sniffling, Lance was already there, waiting with his arms crossed and tapping his foot as though Keith were an hour late rather than ten minutes.

“Well, well, well,” Lance said when he spotted Keith. “Look who finally decided to--”

“You were late yesterday, so I don’t want to hear it,” Keith snapped, his voice sounding a little more hoarse than he would’ve liked. He blamed it on only having just woken up, though the prickly feeling in the back of his throat belied that.

Shiro looked at him pointedly when Keith shuffled up to his desk trying not to sniffle too much, as though to remind Keith that taking a sick day was an option, but Keith was stubborn. He got sick too easily and for too long to take sick days for any but the worst of times. He knew himself. He probably had a few days before it got horrible, if it got to that point at all. If he was lucky he’d just be stuck with a runny nose, a sore throat, and a general feeling of crap for the next few weeks. If he was lucky.

Meanwhile, Lance seemed as chipper and vivacious as he had the day before, practically hopping in his spot and ready to go. Apparently their impromptu polar bear dip had been nothing but a mild inconvenience to him. Keith silently cursed Lance’s luck as Shiro assigned them the same area as the day before. Not wholly unusual for larger areas, and especially considering that their shift had been cut short the day before, it wasn’t at all surprising for Keith. He decided, however, that if Lance decided to play games today, he wasn’t going to play along, no matter what the bait.

Shiro, it seemed, shared Keith’s concerns and then some.

“Try to not go for a swim today,” he told them, a little stern. “Boring as it can be sometimes, this is serious work. Most importantly, try to work together. You’re partners now, so make the most of it.”

Part of it was directed at Lance, the rest at Keith. They both nodded obediently, but Keith wondered just how seriously Lance would take Shiro’s words. If yesterday was any indication, then there was a fat chance of it. Not that Keith was any better. He planned on doing whatever it took to work independently of Lance, even if it meant flying to the very fringes of their assigned area. It was the only way he was going to make it through this week, he was certain, especially as they accidentally crashed into each other (again) trying to beat the other out the door.

They flew to their area in complete silence, which genuinely surprised Keith. He thought for sure that Lance would have something to say. Perhaps, Keith thought with a bit of shame, he’d judged Lance too quickly. After all, they’d only known each other for a day--maybe Lance was just bad at first impressions? And everyone else seemed to think he was an alright guy, even Pidge, who had agreed that Lance was full of himself. Still, Keith couldn’t quite let go of the fact that he was now literally sick because of the guy (by the time they took to the air, there was no denying the veritable waterfall coming out of Keith’s nose), and ultimately decided to reserve his judgement, though it was definitely not leaning in Lance’s favor.

When they reached their area, Lance paused to double check their map, as well as the time. Keith, certain that this was the right area, set to work immediately, intent on getting as far ahead of Lance as possible. Lance, however, quickly realized his intentions, and worked hard to catch up while still picking up any stars he saw along the way. In a way, this was actually a good dynamic for them. Keith swept through and picked out the most obvious stars, while Lance trailed behind and collected the ones that Keith had missed. But as Lance drew closer to Keith, Keith left behind stars in favor of putting more distance between them. He quite liked the silence and peace, and wanted to keep things like that thank you very much. 

Unfortunately, Lance took Shiro’s instructions more seriously than Keith had expected him to. When Keith bypassed stars in favor of a more far out place over the ocean, Lance did the same, keeping the distance between them small. Keith sniffed hard, partly out of irritation, partly because his nose was still running. He flew a bit faster, trying to lose Lance, but Lance sped up just as much. Scowling, Keith hunkered down low over his broom and took off like a bullet through the dark. At this point he didn’t even care if he went a bit out of their area, he just wanted Lance to stay away! Still Lance kept pace with him, if a little ways behind. Just over the wind rushing past his ears, Keith could barely hear Lance shouting something, but he couldn’t make it out, whatever it was.

So intent was Keith on losing Lance that he didn’t notice the shadowy figures up ahead until he nearly crashed into them. Three in total, dressed completely in black to blend in with the darkness, and all with less than friendly expressions. They eyed Keith’s lantern full of stars greedily, and Keith knew immediately what he was up against: snatchers. No doubt that was what Lance had been shouting about. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the snatchers to see how near or far behind him Lance was. They could be tricky and unpredictable, snatchers, but Keith had dealt with them before, and alone at that. He hadn’t needed Lance’s help before, and he certainly didn’t need it now.

There was a brief standstill as Keith and the snatchers regarded each other, and then one of the snatchers darted forward, making a grab at Keith’s lantern. Keith moved quickly, dropping a few meters down through the air and then darting quickly underneath the snatchers, buying himself some time as they turned around to give chase. They caught up with him quicker than most snatchers would, and Keith found himself practically lying flat against the handle of his broom in order to get the most speed. Even then they proved difficult to shake. They positioned themselves strategically, one on either side and the third behind him. No doubt he wouldn’t be able to duck under them again (not to mention he didn’t want to get too close to the surface of the water--he wouldn’t put it past them to dunk him under, given the opportunity), but he might be able to flip over them and throw them for a loop again, and at this speed it might prove more effective.

Gripping his broom tight, Keith jerked sharply upwards, his stomach still trying to follow the forward momentum and making him feel a bit queasy. Now upside down, he watched the snatcher that had been behind him swipe up at him, but catching only empty air as Keith sailed seamlessly over him. Keith grinned in spite of the situation. He righted himself and flew forward, flying low to the water to hurriedly grab some stars so that the snatchers couldn’t, in such a speedy way that he was certain he looked like a stone skipping across the surface of the water. With the snatchers hot on his tail again, Keith stuffed the handful of stars in his coat pocket and sped up again. Why they didn’t just collect stars out of sight of searchers like Keith was beyond him, but here they were. Perhaps they just saw it as more efficient to have someone else do the searching and collecting for them, especially if he wasn’t their only target for the day. Regardless, he wasn’t going to make this easy for them.

Apparently, they had no intention of making this easy for Keith either, as they closely surrounded him once more. For the first time he found himself wondering where in the world Lance was--had he finally succeeded in losing him at the most inopportune time? Keith flipped again, this time over one of the snatchers at his sides, and turned sharply in a new direction, the sudden swivel making him feel irritatingly nauseated again. The snatchers caught up even quicker than before, closing in even closer this time, very nearly within arm’s reach of Keith and the stars he’d collected. Or at least, the ones at his sides were. A sudden jolt that nearly knocked him out of the air told him the snatcher behind him was much closer than he ought to be. The one on his right reached out just as he stabilized himself, and on instinct he leaned out of their way--right into the waiting hand of the one on his left.

Keith cursed himself for having fallen for such an obvious trick, and now found himself grappling with one snatcher and trying to fend off the other two with one leg. The snatcher that grabbed him had an iron grip, and it was all Keith could do to keep them from grabbing his lantern. Fatigue was overtaking him more swiftly than he would’ve liked, his struggling arms already turning to jelly. Keith was starting to worry that these snatchers might overpower him when, with a loud whoop, Lance dive bombed the one that had a hold of Keith, pushing his entire weight on the front of the broom and flipping the snatcher neatly into the air. Unfortunately, the snatcher didn’t let go of Keith until he was already well and falling, which meant that Keith was jerked sharply forward off of his broom. As soon as he was free of the snatcher, he twisted around in the air, catching his broom and catching himself just before he hit the water. The snatcher wasn’t so lucky. Had they been farther up, Keith might’ve been worried for the poor sap.

Meanwhile, Lance’s flamboyant flying style had the remaining two snatchers in a tizzy, twisting and spiraling through the air just as well as Lance but still finding that he slipped right through their fingers. Keith watched as Lance then made a sharp dive, the agitated snatchers hot on his tail, and tried not to laugh the instant he realized what was about to happen. He held his breath as Lance successfully pulled up out of the dive a split second before hitting the surface of the water, while the snatchers, likely disoriented by the lack of light on their target, hit the water with a resounding smack. Keith winced, but also laughed a little at their sorry state.

Lance flew up to him, laughing animatedly. “Phew, nothing like a few snatchers to keep you on your toes, huh?”

“No kidding,” Keith agreed, feeling a little out of breath. “We should probably--”

 

“I already paged the Bureau,” Lance interrupted. “As soon as they started chasing you, I paged them, and then I tried to catch up to help… Took a while though, both you and them can really move.”

“Well, you caught up just in time… thanks,” Keith said, a little quietly.

Lance beamed, clearly pleased with himself. “No problemo, after all, we’re partners, right? That’s what partners do.”

“Yeah,” Keith breathed, mild guilt washing over him. “Uh, sorry for trying to ditch you, earlier.”

Lance waved a hand at him. “Don’t worry about it. I’d try to ditch me too, if I did to me what I did to you yesterday.”

“That… hardly makes sense,” Keith said, squinting at Lance.

“Yeah, I know,” Lance giggled just before sneezing so hard he nearly flipped in the air. Keith rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help but smile a little. What a dork.

A squad of keepers (officers who dealt with the official capture and arrests of snatchers, particularly those that attacked searchers) arrived within a few minutes, just as the defeated snatchers had stumbled onto the beach half-frozen. Keith almost felt bad for them. The flight to the Bureau while completely soaked with icy ocean water was not a fun one. Still, once they were out of his sight, he returned his attention back to searching. There had been times when he’d thought to be a keeper, given how exciting it could be to dance through the air while trying to outsmart snatchers, but the majority of keeper work involved a lot of paper shuffling. The last thing Keith wanted was to end up chained to a desk for days at a time.

They finished their shift without further incident, and Lance in particular was eager to share the excitement with Shiro, telling the story with over-exaggerated gestures and infectious enthusiasm. Shiro was glad to see the both of them safe and dry, and was particularly pleased that they didn’t seem to be at each other’s throats today. When Lance left, eager to clock out, Shiro stopped Keith to ask him how he was feeling. Surprisingly, Keith found that it wasn’t a lie when he said he felt perfectly fine. His nose was still running a little, but the threat of a sore throat was gone, and he didn’t feel nearly as exhausted as he ought to. He went home feeling almost chipper, so much so that it was all too easy to be brought back down when he forgot, in his good mood, about that patch of ice in the middle of his path home. Thus he was brought back down to his usual state of casual cynicism.

The next day saw his sniffles completely gone, the risk of a weeks long battle with a cold safely passed much quicker than Keith had ever seen it go. As such he started his day in a pretty good mood, though not so good that he was distracted from that menacing ice that seemed determined to take him down. Lance, on the other hand, was more miserable than Keith had seen him in the past two days. It was a little jarring, honestly, to see Lance with his shoulders slouched and a scowl on his face. He looked as though he’d hardly slept. Keith was still acutely aware of how little he knew about Lance, but he couldn’t help but feel like something was off.

“Are you… alright?” Keith asked tentatively.

Lance narrowed his eyes at Keith, his expression accusing. “You got me sick.”

Keith blinked at the accusation. “I did not!”

“You did so! You were sniffling yesterday, and you gave it to me! Now I’m sick and you’re not, and I never get sick! Never!” Lance’s voice was hoarse and the effort from raising his voice sent him into a coughing fit.

And thus they were back to bickering, Lance no less argumentative in spite of his constant sniffling and sore throat. Keith was starting to think that the previous day had been a fluke, the friendliness born from necessity rather than any inherent goodwill. Lance’s over-emphasized sniffing quickly wore on Keith’s nerves, to the point where he practically threw a box of tissues at Lance’s face (not that he’d been aiming for his face, his face had just been in the way of where he had been throwing…), which only gave Lance further reason to complain. It wasn’t until they took took the air for the day that Keith got a few moments of reprieve, the only sound being the rush of wind past his ears. Unfortunately, as soon as they reached their assigned area for the day (a heavily forested area, forcing them to search on foot rather than in the air), Lance immediately began anew, much to Keith’s dismay.

It was only a few minutes after they’d begun searching that Keith couldn’t take it anymore. “If you’re feeling so miserable, why didn’t you just take the day off?”

Lance scrunched up his nose, either trying to stifle his runny nose or simply annoyed. Probably both. “Can’t a guy complain a little?”

“No,” Keith said sternly. Perhaps if it really were just a little bit of complaining it’d be fine, but clearly he and Lance had very different ideas of what was considered “a little”.

“Fine,” Lance sighed, with another dramatic sniff. “But can we at least talk about something? It gets so boring searching and collecting in silence.”

Keith deliberated as he picked up a few stars tucked away in a bird’s nest under a bush. He vastly preferred to search in silence, but if it meant that Lance wouldn’t be aimlessly complaining about how Keith had gotten him sick, maybe it would be worth it.

“Okay, what do you want to talk about?” Keith asked.

Lance faltered. “I, uh, don’t--actually know? Never thought I’d get this far.”

Keith closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying very hard to remain calm. Thankfully Lance very wisely chose not to say anything as Keith took several deep breaths. Never before had Keith encountered someone who seemed to be specifically designed, in every single aspect, to test his patience (of which there was very little in the first place).

“Oh, oh, I’ve got something!” Lance exclaimed suddenly. “Why did you decide to become a searcher?”

“It’s a job,” Keith said, not entirely honestly.

“Really, that’s it?” Lance asked. “You’re so boring.”

“Whatever,” Keith sighed. “What’s your reason then? You want to save the world or something?”

“Exactly,” Lance answered.

“What? Really?” Keith hadn’t expected that to actually be the case.

Lance nodded eagerly, climbing up a tree to grab some stars nestled among the leaves. “I want to find the sun, moon, and all the other planets.”

“You realize those are all different task forces, right?” Keith asked. There were searchers specifically dedicated to the sun, moon, and planets, but each different celestial body had a different task force dedicated to it. Searchers on those task forces didn’t stop for stars, so as to stay focused on their main goal.

“Yep, but I’m still going to find them all,” Lance said enthusiastically. “You don’t necessarily need to be on the task forces to be the one to find them.”

“Yeah, but you’d have more time and resources to better search,” Keith reasoned.

“And even then they still haven’t found a single one of them. So much for all those time and resources,” Lance said.

Keith hummed. “Solid math. So you’re just going to keep searching for stars until you happen to find the sun or moon?”

“Yep!” Lance said with a pop.

A beat of silence passed between them, during which Keith considered telling Lance about his true desire to be a replacer, but that would necessitate telling Lance that he’d failed the most basic screenings, hadn’t even made it to the training. He knew Lance probably had an inkling--after all, unless you chose to have a partner, you didn’t get assigned one for no reason. Still, Keith wasn’t sure he wanted to explain that Lance was stuck here with Keith because Keith was inexplicably drawn to searching for stars, to flying through the dark. It felt right in a way that nothing else in his life had. It felt personal, not something he wanted to talk about with someone he’d hardly known for three days yet.

“Okay, okay, I’ve got a better question: would you rather find the sun or the moon?” Lance asked.

“That’s stupid, the sun,” Keith answered.

“Really? If I had to choose, I’d choose the moon,” Lance said.

Keith sputtered at such backwards logic. “What? That’s crazy, we need the sun!”

Lance smiled mischievously. “Yeah, but how does the moon shine?”

“It reflects sunlight--hey, that’s cheating!”

Lance laughed loudly. “How is that cheating?!”

“The moon could be in the sky without shining, we just wouldn’t see it without the sun, which means we need the sun!” Keith argued.

“Sure, sure, but the implication--”

“There doesn’t need to be an implication--”

“The sun and moon go together--”

“Then why’d you ask it like it was a choice?!”

They bantered in a similar manner for the rest of their shift, Lance asking off the wall questions that he answered with insensible logic. By the time they were set to fly away, Keith felt more exhausted than he’d ever felt at the end of any shift before (save for perhaps the past two days). They had just risen above the treetops when they heard something highly unusual--a distant rumble of thunder. At first, Keith thought it was a distant explosion, which was worrying enough. But then Lance pointed towards the horizon, where a lone bolt of lightning had just struck, followed by another low rumble. That was perhaps even more concerning. Since the fall, all weather patterns had essentially ceased; storms were a rare, but devastating happening. With that in mind, Keith and Lance hurried back to the Bureau without another word.

“Quiet day?” Shiro asked when they returned.

“Mostly, until the end,” Lance said. “There was some lightning, even though there’s no storm in the forecast, but I mean who can tell what the weather is going to be like anymore.”

“Yeah…” Shiro said, with a touch of melancholy. He blinked just before his eyes misted over, and continued, “Some searchers actually had a close call with that lightning. We’re told it was just electrical discharge from the upper atmosphere that managed to reach the ground--thankfully no one was hurt, and there’s no storm either, so all in all, not as bad as it could be.”

Lance had immediately tuned out as soon as Shiro started talking about science stuff, but Keith caught on to the implication. 

“‘Not as bad as it could be’?” Keith repeated. “What does that mean?”

Shiro sighed deeply. “This isn’t the first time there’s been a spontaneous discharge of lightning without any storms. Granted, lightning can strike quite a ways from storms, but these have been happening without any storms for hundreds of miles. Scientists are worried that it means the atmosphere is, essentially, breaking apart.”

That got Lance’s attention again. “Breaking apart…?”

Shiro nodded gravely. “We’ve gone without the sun for too long. We’ve survived for this long through sheer willpower and wishmaking, but this may not be something we can avoid with wishes and ingenuity. The Bureau is starting to take on more searchers into the solar task force, so if either of you want to apply, they’ll gladly take you.”

Keith looked back and forth between Shiro and Lance. Normally application for task forces was nearly as tedious a process as applying for replacer training, as for some reason everyone on the specialized task forces was required to have special clearance, which necessitated all manner of background checks, interviews, and of course mental screenings. With the sting of rejection from replacer training still fresh, Keith was certain that, even with the solar task force trying to double their numbers (and efforts), he would still be rejected. Lance, on the other hand, looked thoughtful. Keith liked to think he was certain that Lance wouldn’t apply; after he’d only just told Keith a few hours ago that it didn’t really matter whether he was on some specialized task force or not. But his expression cast a shadow of doubt in Keith. He shoved it aside--if Lance decided to apply for the solar task force after all, then good for him. It would just leave Keith in need of another partner, was all.

“I think I’m good,” Keith told Shiro with a pointed look.

“Yeah, me too. At this point what we really need to find the sun is some good luck, and a lot of it,” Lance said casually.

“No kidding,” Shiro agreed. “Well, if you guys change your mind, let me know, they’d prefer experienced searchers over new recruits, so you’d both probably get in no problem.”

Keith wasn’t quite convinced that it would be so easy, but assured Shiro he would keep it in mind. Lance was oddly silent on their way to drop off their stars at the analysts’ department, save for a sniffle or a cough here and there. Keith almost asked if something was wrong, but then, they’d just been told that the last thing that made their planet livable was breaking apart. Such news would be sobering to all but the most apathetic. As it was, Lance perked right back up in the analysts’ department, insisting that they count their stars to see who had managed to collect more (Keith did, but Lance was certain that he’d miscounted and would’ve counted for himself had Pidge and Hunk not shouted at them to step away from the stars so they could actually do their jobs).

As Keith waited to see if Pidge found anything of note, she mentioned, “The solar task force is looking for more people.”

Keith nodded. “Shiro just told me. I’m just going to stay a general searcher for now.”

“I think,” Pidge started slowly, not looking up from her work. “I’m going to apply.”

“What? Why?” Chatting with Pidge at the end of his shift was one of his favorite parts of the day! Who would he vent to on days where Lance decided to be insufferable (although he only had to hold out for a little less than a week now, Keith reminded himself)?

Pidge shrugged. “They need more people, what with the potential collapse of the atmosphere happening… not to mention it’d be nice, to feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself, I think. And my dad and brother are on one of the planetary task forces as well, and I’d like to follow them, in a way.”

She looked up at Keith. “Aren’t you going to apply?”

“No,” Keith said shortly. Pidge didn’t press the issue.

When he awoke the next day, he hoped that it wouldn’t come with any more unwelcome surprises. The last three days had left him unusually exhausted, and while he was certain he could handle it if he needed to, he wasn’t all that sure he wanted to. Thankfully, the majority of the day was relatively quiet, save for Lance’s griping about his cold, which had become worse than it had been the day before. Again Keith reminded him that if it was really that bad he could just take a day off, to which Lance replied he wouldn’t have anyone to complain to if he stayed home, so what was the point? It wasn’t until they were flying back to the Bureau that something unexpected, though not entirely unwelcome, happened.

They had just been flying along when Lance began shouting, which made Keith think there were more snatchers nearby. But when he looked at Lance, he was waving enthusiastically at something--scratch that, someone. Keith looked where Lance was starting to fly towards, and saw a silver streak gliding down from the sky. His first thought was that a comet was passing through (comets had been dragged down during the fall as well, but had a curious behavior compared to other celestial objects--they roamed free over the surface of the earth, bringing snow and ice with them, almost a substitute for the absent weather patterns), but a closer look revealed that it was a person with long, silver-white hair. 

“Allura! Hey!” he heard Lance call out, loud enough that it made him start coughing again. That didn’t stop him from flying forward to meet the woman, who was removing a high-altitude mask--she was a replacer.

Lance reached out as though to hug her mid-air, but she neatly ducked under him with a laugh.

“You’re sick, I don’t want you getting me sick!” she giggled as Lance clumsily sailed right over her.

He turned to scowl at Keith. “This is your fault!”

“For the last time, I did not get you sick, you fell in too!” Keith snapped.

It looked as though they were going to fall into their usual back and forth when Allura coolly cut in, “Lance, is this the new partner you were telling me about?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, Allura, this is Keith. Keith, Allura,” Lance quickly introduced.

“Nice to meet you,” Allura said, holding out a gloved hand. “I hope Lance hasn’t been giving you too much trouble.”

“More than I know what to do with,” Keith replied with a firm shake of her hand.

Lance loudly protested this statement, but it seemed that Allura was all too familiar with his antics. In fact, Keith discovered, they were childhood friends (though, from Lance’s expression, Keith thought there might be something else there too, but he didn’t want to ask outright). Keith joked that he was already tired after four days with Lance, and how did Allura manage an entire lifetime? Allura was in the midst of making a snarky reply when Lance quite literally cut in between them and decided that they were not allowed to become friends. The rest of the flight back to the Bureau was mostly idle chatter between Allura and Lance, which freed Keith from having to hold a conversation with Lance. It was actually kind of cute, seeing the dynamic between two people who were so close, and Keith was far from being a sappy person. Where Lance was tactless and almost clumsy, Allura was refined and graceful, at least as far as Keith could tell. They complemented each other quite nicely, Keith thought.

When they reached the Bureau, Lance was the first to hurry to the analysts’ department to count how many stars he got. Keith was about to follow close behind, turning to bid good bye to Allura when she stopped him short.

“I really do hope that Lance isn’t too much trouble. I know he can seem--overbearing at times, but he really is a good person,” Allura said.

“So I’ve been told,” Keith replied.

“Hopefully in time you’ll come to see it as well,” Allura said. “That said, I can’t help but feel you’re bad luck for him.”

It had been framed as a joke, but after hearing something along the same lines from Lance almost non-stop for the past several days, Keith couldn’t help but snap, “I told you, it wasn’t my fault that we fell in--”

“I know, I know,” Allura hurriedly interrupted. “I just meant, he never gets sick, and I’ve known him since we were young. He literally never gets sick, and now, only a few days after meeting you, he gets a cold. I know it was probably just from falling in the ocean.”

Keith sighed. “Sorry, I know you were just joking--wait, he really never gets sick? I thought he was exaggerating.”

“Nope, Lance has always been exceptionally healthy, more so than most people,” Allura confirmed. “I’m surprised he’s even bothered to come to work, but I suppose that’s once again your doing.”

“Me?”

She nodded. “Lance has never quite been able to settle on one thing to strive for--I don’t know if he told you he wants to find the sun, moon, and all the planets?”

Keith nodded.

“He’s always been like that,” she continued, smiling fondly. “He wasn’t even sure he wanted to be a searcher, he only applied to the Bureau because I did. But he does have a competitive streak, though he’d never admit it. He seems to think he needs to do better than you, and so if you’re still coming to work, he thinks he needs to come as well.”

“He has been counting our stars to see who collects more,” Keith noted.

“Well, some way or other, you’ve inspired him to do better. Only, don’t tell him I’ve told you any of this, okay?” Allura asked.

Keith was about to assure her that his lips were sealed on the matter when Lance rounded the corner, reminding them that they were, under no circumstances, allowed to become friends and insisted that Keith hurry up so they could count his stars. After this declaration he sneezed several times. Allura giggled and bid them both goodbye as she made her way to the replacer’s department. It was only later, as Keith mulled over that conversation in his head, did he realize that Allura had quite contradicted herself. Granted, she’d been joking when she said Keith might be bad luck for Lance, but she didn’t know that it was normally Keith getting sick easily and not recovering for weeks at a time. Had Keith’s luck with health somehow switched to Lance? He shook his head of the thought--that was simply ridiculous. That was just life. He’d said it himself, everyone got sick sooner or later. It was more of a stroke of good luck in Keith’s case than any bad luck in Lance’s. That aside, Keith, good for Lance? A little weird to think about when Lance seemed intent on picking a fight with Keith at every opportunity. How could that possibly be good for anyone? Regardless, Keith was certain it was no good for him, and had no intention of continuing this partnership past the week that Shiro had given him.

The next day was even quieter, very nearly the kind of day that Keith enjoyed having--if only because Lance’s throat had become so sore that his voice came out as nothing more than a strained hiss. His movements were more sluggish and hardly improved throughout the day. Keith found himself slowing down to let Lance catch up, which only seemed to aggravate Lance. Unfortunately, without his voice, and the fact that he’d doubled the layers piled onto him (making him look like some sort of puffball with legs), it was a little difficult to take him seriously. Still, Keith felt a little bad. He knew all too well what it was like to be stubbornly sick, and from what it looked like, Lance needed at least a little downtime to recover. But if what Allura had said was true…

Keith took the next day off, much to Shiro’s surprise. He didn’t explain too much, only asked that Shiro tell Lance. Shiro told him what he’d suspected all along: missing a day wouldn’t exempt him from having Lance as his partner for an entire week. Shiro sounded suspicious when Keith didn’t put up a fight at this, but didn’t inquire. He assured Keith he would let Lance know. Keith was then subjected to an incredibly boring day. Sick days normally were, but in this case he wasn’t actually sick. Time passed even more slowly than normal, no matter what he tried--drawing, reading, watching TV, playing video games--nothing seemed to grab his attention for more than an hour.

It was almost a relief to return to work the next day, even with Lance being even more over the top than usual, in celebration of the return of his good health. That day and the next, while still exhausting for Keith, were exhausting in a pleasant way, if new to Keith. Lance still insisted on talking about something, anything to while away the hours while they collected stars, one day over a river, the next in a field. It was almost like pulling teeth to get Keith to make responses that were more than a few words, but with enough prompting Lance eventually found decent conversations in Keith. And Keith--well, he couldn’t remember the last time a shift had passed so easily.

As such, when Shiro asked him at the end of the sixth day with Lance as his partner what he was thinking, Keith told him he was still thinking. In reality, he didn’t want to admit that perhaps Lance wasn’t as bad as he’d first made him out to be. Certainly Lance was full of himself, but not necessarily to the point of arrogance. And, believe it or not, Keith was beginning to think that Lance’s chattiness was something he could get used to. But if he admitted any of that, Shiro would give him a smug, knowing look, and Keith would have to live with that. Better to put it off for as long as possible, inevitable as it was.

The seventh day began as peacefully as the past two. Today, Lance was talking about his family.

“We used to live on the beach, but I don’t remember much of it. My mom talked about it a lot though, about how the waves were so soothing and the ocean was like this incredible force of nature that made you feel really humbled, and then my dad would always interrupt to talk about sunsets and sunrises over the ocean,” he rambled. “But we moved away maybe a year or so before I started school. Still, I was born after the fall, so it’s not like there was much to remember. Where did you grow up?”

Keith had been so content with just listening that it took him a moment to realize that Lance had actually asked him a question. “Oh, I--I grew up in the desert, mostly.”

“Really? Like with cactuses and everything?” Lance asked eagerly.

“It’s cacti, and no, not really. The desert used to be a really sunny place, apparently, and they didn’t last very long without the sun,” Keith explained.

“I’m pretty sure it’s cactuses,” Lance insisted. “So what was it like growing up in the desert then?”

“Cacti, and very cold,” Keith answered absently.

Lance was just about to argue that it was cactuses when a sharp, yet distant crack echoed throughout the air, drawing their attention to some place a few miles off. Another spontaneous bolt of lightning. They watched with bated breath as another lightning strike lit up the distant skies. Neither Keith nor Lance had much to say to that, a stark reminder of the limited time they and everyone else on this planet had. They were just about to fly away, continue their work, when Keith remembered something.

“Hey, didn’t Shiro say that the lightning was caused by some breakdown of the upper atmosphere?” he asked.

Lance shrugged. “Yeah, but maybe we can only see what’s happening in the lower atmosphere? I don’t know how that stuff works.”

Keith didn’t know how that stuff worked either, but he watched a third bolt of lightning split through the darkness, fizzling out well within the lower limits of the atmosphere. Not to mention, all three bolt now had been within the same area. Something didn’t seem right to Keith. He started to fly towards where they’d seen the lightning, when Lance flew in front of him to stop him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, where do you think you’re going?” Lance demanded.

“I’m going to go see what’s going on,” Keith said, flying around him to continue on his way.

But Lance again blocked his path. “Some junk going down in the upper atmosphere, like Shiro said. You’re going to get yourself zapped if you go over there.”

“Okay, but why is it only happening over there? Isn’t the entire atmosphere collapsing?” Keith pointed out.

Lance didn’t budge from his spot, but he looked thoughtful. Keith didn’t have time to explain his vague suspicions to Lance. He didn’t even know what he expected to find, only that something didn’t seem right about this spontaneous lighting. He flew around Lance again, and was pleased that Lance didn’t try to stop him this time. Then, only a second later, he noticed Lance flying by his side.

“I honestly think you’re being paranoid,” Lance told him. “But Shiro would probably kill me if I let you do anything stupid by yourself.”

Keith grinned. “Race you there?”

Lance’s eyes lit up, his smile cocky. “Oh, you’re so on.”

It was hard to say who reached the area first, given that there was no concrete finish line--and also the fact that a fourth bolt of lightning nearly struck them out of the air. Keith only barely managed to hold on to his broom as the sharp maneuver he’d used to avoid the lightning sent him rolling through the air. Everything was ringing, and he saw spots in his vision. He could only barely see Lance, but decided that at this rate, it would be safer for them to be on the ground and grabbed him by the arm as he descended. Even if they got struck by lightning, it would be better if they didn’t fall out of the air. Lance, still trying to rub the spots out of his eyes, resisted at first, but then followed easily.

They landed on a charred patch of ground, still smoking from the intense heat of the lightning. Lance waved a hand in front of his face to clear some of the air around him. Nothing seemed very out of the ordinary--except for the fact that there had now been four bolts of lightning in nearly the same place. Not to mention, something just felt… off to Keith. Maybe it was just the air, unusually warm and dry, that made him feel like something was wrong.

“See, Keith?” Lance said, gesturing to the area. “Nothing sinister going on here.”

“Really? Nothing feels at all weird to you?” Keith insisted, knowing it wasn’t just paranoia he was feeling. He wasn’t superstitious by any means, but the best way to describe it was that there was some presence, looming and dangerous. He suddenly thought it was not a very good idea to be here.

Lance hesitated with his answer. “I mean, yeah, it feels weird, but there’s nothing actually weird here!”

“But you agree there’s something weird here?”

“I just said--!”

“No take-backs, you agree that something weird is going on here, and we’re going to find what it is!” Keith said with certainty. 

Lance mumbled something about how he should’ve kept his mouth shut, but Keith ignored him as he surveyed the area. Even with his eyes adjusted back to the darkness, Keith couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. He detached his lantern of stars from his broom, and held it aloft, hoping the soft light would help him spot something, anything that would justify this nagging feeling at the back of his mind. Still there was nothing.

He was just about to turn to Lance and admit that, perhaps, just this once, he’d been wrong (much as he loathed to even think it), when Lance grabbed him by the arm and roughly shoved him down. Keith was, at first, adverse to such treatment, but when something solid and fast swept the empty air over his head, Keith was grateful for Lance’s quick reaction--how had he missed someone so close to him?!

They stumbled upright to face their assailant--a snatcher, if the way he eyed Keith’s lantern was anything to go by. He used his own broom as a weapon, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. Senses sharpened by adrenaline, Keith noticed several more in the nearby woodline. He would’ve missed them if he hadn’t been looking for them. Keith gripped his own broom in his free hand. They were definitely and easily outnumbered, and already on the ground. Fancy flying wouldn’t get them out of this one. But, Keith thought, if they could get in the air, they might be able to get away. That would be their best bet, but how did Keith let Lance know that. They stood back to back as the snatchers slowly advanced on them, like predators closing in on their prey. Keith was determined to not be easy prey.

He lunged at the first one, the one that would’ve gotten the drop on him had it not been for Lance. There was only so much he could do with a broom one handed, but that didn’t mean he didn’t give the guy a run for his money. A quick, sharp jab to the gut had the snatcher doubled over, allowing Keith to smack the back of his head, and for good measure, kick him just hard enough to put him on the ground. Lance, meanwhile, had the use of both hands and wielded his broom much like a staff. He was quicker by far than the snatchers, and managed to keep them at bay while Keith created an opening from them to escape behind him.

“Lance, let’s go!” he shouted as soon as there was an opportunity.

Lance didn’t need telling twice. With a huge sweep of his broom, he pushed the snatchers back (if only a little), and followed Keith away from them. They only needed a few seconds to get in the air far enough that the snatchers couldn’t drag them back to the ground. After that, it would be a simple matter of outflying them all the way back to the Bureau.

Keith had just mounted his broom when he heard Lance scream a ways behind him. Another searcher, one neither of them had seen before, had Lance sprawled out on the ground. The other snatchers had backed away, practically back into the woodline. Lance had a pained expression, though Keith couldn’t see any evidence of injury. The snatcher’s expression, on the other hand, was a bit more difficult to decipher. It was neutral, but almost self satisfied, like she had the upper hand on them. Which, granted, may be the case, but Keith wasn’t about to let her know that.

She said nothing as she raised her hand, curling her fingers into a finger gun pointing straight at Keith. He faltered--what did she hope to accomplish by doing that? The other snatchers had retreated even farther back, and Keith realized a second too late what was about to happen. He saw the snatcher’s mouth form a single word (“Bang!”) just before all his senses whited out, and then faded to black.

When he woke up next, Keith found himself in a blindingly white hospital bed with a throbbing headache, with the distinct feeling he’d had a dream, a dream filled with too much light and too much heat and too much everything that was the exact opposite of his dreams. He blinked, and the sensation was gone, but the headache remained. Beside his bed, Shiro sat patiently, looking a little apprehensive.

“What happened?” Keith croaked.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Shiro replied.

Keith shook his head, and pressed his hands to his eyes in a weak attempt to dispel the pain. It didn’t work, and the pain made everything blurry. There had been snatchers, that much he could remember. He and Lance had been surrounded…

“Where’s Lance?” he asked.

“In the room next door,” Shiro answered. “He’s fine, save for a badly sprained ankle. You, on the other hand, have a concussion. You’ve been in and out of consciousness for the past couple hours now.”

Keith groaned at that. Injuries, like sickness, took forever for Keith to recover from. He didn’t count on getting lucky like he had with the cold, for all that he hoped he would. A concussion would have him grounded, which, as a general searcher, either meant paper shuffling or star analysis. Neither of which Keith was keen on. Shiro got up to go check on Lance, and let a nurse know that Keith was awake and aware now, but Keith stopped him just before he walked out the door.

“Hey, Shiro,” he said in a quiet voice, trying to choose his words carefully. “If--I mean, I know he won’t like being grounded because of me… but if Lance were to stay on as my partner… I don’t think I’d mind.”

Shiro spared him an “I told you so,” and even smiled without seeming smug. He simply nodded, and then left Keith to the silence of his hospital room. And for the first time, the silence was not as calm and peaceful as he once thought it to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all didn't think this was going to be a slow burn or anything! Slow burns are great, but I am apparently incapable of doing them, so, as the tags say, this is straight up romance! Cause I'm a cheeseball! I hope you're a cheeseball too and that you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. See y'all next week! :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's that time of the week again! I hope you guys are as excited as I am! Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read it so far, y'all make me feel so valid!

The gist, from what Shiro and other Bureau workers had gathered, was that a massive electronic disturbance occurred in an area where two searchers had been working, and the snatchers had taken advantage of that. The snatchers had not yet left the area when Keith and Lance arrived to investigate, so they decided to cash in even more. They were only half successful--they had taken Keith’s lantern full of stars, thinking that that was the collective amount of stars both he and Lance had collected, but had not rifled through Lance’s pockets (realizing this, Keith patted his chest out of habit, and nearly panicked until he saw his one allotted wish on a bedside table, shining steadily through the glass of the flask he kept it in). Lance's odd habit had saved a few handfuls of stars. The snatchers were long gone by the time a squad of keepers had arrived on the scene, paged by Lance once again. According to him, the bolt of lightning had struck so close to Keith as to send him flying haphazardly through the air. The way Lance told it, it was quite astonishing that he’d gotten away with only a concussion. Lance’s injury had not been so glamorous--he twisted his ankle when that last snatcher tackled him from behind. 

All accounts, however, seemed to leave out one crucial detail. That last snatcher seemed to have something to do with the lightning. Whether she could predict it or summon it, Keith had no idea, but he knew for certain that she had something to do with it. The only problem was that the idea was so far fetched, he couldn’t dare speak a word of it to anyone, lest he get sent for another mental evaluation. He was already grounded as it was while he healed, he didn’t need that time to be extended by a lengthy evaluation. No, he couldn’t talk to anyone about this. Except for Lance.

Visiting hours had long since ended, which meant that Shiro had left some time ago. Keith, unfortunately, was to be kept in the hospital overnight so that the doctor could monitor the condition of his concussion. Lance, having only a badly sprained ankle, had been discharged around the same time visiting hours had ended. He’d popped into Keith’s room just before leaving, hobbling clumsily with a crutch but looking otherwise as sunny as he always did. He spoke in markedly softer tones, conscious of Keith’s head injury the entire time. Unfortunately, with Shiro nearby, Keith was reluctant to speak of that one particular snatcher and her as yet unknown connection with lightning. Shiro was patient and understanding, but even he had limits. No doubt he would manage to convince Keith that he was confused because of his concussion. Remembering it wrong. Keith needed someone who was there, someone that could be counted on to remember it better than him--someone that was currently not here.

That being the case, Keith was up for most of the night. For the most part he was simply restless, but even if he had wanted to try sleeping, the nurses checked on him too frequently for him to fall asleep. So in the meantime he replayed his last moments of consciousness over and over in his head, trying to find some semblance of sense in what he’d seen. She’d pointed at him--or did she point near him, where the lightning had struck? Had she somehow made a wish that granted her the supernatural ability to produce lightning? The latter was highly unlikely--people that wished for superpowers of any sort always met with dire and often times fatal consequences. Those who wished for the power of flight always seemed to fly too high, invisible people disappeared, never to be seen again, pyrokinetics were burned to a crisp--the stars had made it very clear that humans were meant to use tools, not to be tools themselves.

Once again, the passage of time eluded Keith. There was no clock in the room, no indication of the time on the vitals machine he was hooked up to. The only indication he had that time was moving at all was the occasional visits of the nurses, who asked him a few questions, like how he was feeling, questions to test his awareness, and then if there was anything he needed before they left again. He was consistently plagued by a persistent headache, even when given decent painkillers. The dry hospital air had him feeling a little sickly after a while; dry eyes, scratchy throat, a general feeling of malaise. Otherwise, he seemed to be doing alright. The memory recall tests the nurses would put him through still weren’t going well, but that was to be expected, apparently. Head injuries, they told him, were tricky. It was not at all reassuring.

He wasn’t even aware that it was morning until someone that wasn’t a nurse came fumbling into the room.

“Wow, you look like hot garbage,” Lance commented as soon as he hobbled into the room.

Keith scowled. His eyes ached from a lack of sleep and the dry hospital air, and he definitely did not have the energy or patience to be dealing with casual insults right now.

“How are you feeling?” Lance asked, a bit more kindly as he eased himself onto a chair near the bed.

“Pretty much like hot garbage,” Keith sighed, in spite of his initial reaction. “I haven’t been able to sleep at all.”

“Ouch. And the head?” Lance inquired.

“Not much better. Still can’t pass the short term memory tests they keep throwing at me, much less the long term ones, but I think I got close last time,” Keith explained.

Lance hummed, and then an awkward silence fell between them. Lance fluttered his hands in front of him, seeming… nervous? Or uncertain? Keith didn’t have the patience to wait for Lance to make up his mind about whatever it was.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Nothing! I just--” Lance hesitated, brow furrowed. “Do you remember what happened?”

“At first I didn’t, but now I have a fuzzy idea of what happened,” Keith said slowly, very aware that they were incredibly close to talking about what he’d wanted to talk about since the night before. “We had just gotten away from the other snatchers, when a snatcher we hadn’t seen snuck up and tackled you from behind… she pointed her finger, at me I think, or near me, I’m not sure. And then…”

“And then lightning struck where she pointed,” Lance finished for him, when Keith trailed off.

“Yeah.”

Again silence descended upon them, more heavy and serious than awkward. So, Lance was aware that something strange was afoot, but what were they supposed to make of it? They were only searchers. If they wanted to investigate this snatcher officially, they would need to be keepers, and at that they would have to work their way up the ranks in order to be assigned an investigation like this. Not to mention, even if they just wanted to tip off investigators… who would believe them?

“We need more information,” Lance said decidedly.

Keith nodded. “At the very least, we know that where there’s lightning, we’ll find that snatcher. We’d just need to be careful not to be caught.”

“By the snatchers or by the Bureau,” Lance agreed.

“Shiro especially,” Keith noted with a grimace.

That decided (fairly easily too, Keith thought), they moved back to the topic of each other’s health. Keith had no idea when he was going to be released, but he was pretty confident that it would be some time later that day. Lance, meanwhile, for all that his injury was light, was looking at a few weeks of healing. Even if Keith’s concussion healed quickly, the two of them would be kept grounded so long as Lance was still limping around. They chatted quietly for perhaps twenty minutes, until Lance’s phone went off with a trill.

“Ah, looks like it’s time for me to go,” Lance said, standing with his crutch. At Keith’s confused look, he explained, “Still have to go in. It’s hard to say what Shiro will have me do, but I’m betting on either paperwork, or paperwork.”

“You have to go in today? They didn’t give you a day off after what just happened?” Keith questioned.

Lance shrugged. “Shiro tried, but I guess some higher ups told him that since it’s just a sprained ankle he can find something for me to do. Anyways, it’s a long walk, so I’d better get going.”

“Walk? You’re walking all the way to the Bureau from here? But by foot it’s almost an hour away, why not just go straight to work, especially with an injured ankle?”

“Eh, closer to forty minutes, and I don’t live very far from here, so it’s no big deal,” Lance said with a wave of a hand.

While Keith processed that information, Lance left. Lance lived this far from the Bureau, and made that walk, both ways, every day? No wonder he’d gotten sick after falling into the ocean--he had to spend that much longer outside than Keith did. Keith’s walk between home and work was barely ten minutes, and that was if he was taking his time. Cars and other such means of transportation were scarce these days, what with few plants able to deal with the excess carbon dioxide in the air, and brooms--well, they couldn’t exactly be outlawed, given that plenty of people still used them to clean, but using them for private flying was highly regulated. Even Keith didn’t have a license to fly a broom for private use. Long story short, it meant that plenty of people, including Lance, had to walk a long ways to pay their rent. Keith was just exceptionally lucky. Still, with a sprained ankle that wasn’t likely to fully heal for a few weeks…

He was snapped out of his thoughts when the nurses came in again, and discovered that he was doing much better with his memory recall (not perfect, but very good for someone who got a concussion only the night before). Not to mention, his headache had lessened to a dull throb. Given that he seemed to be recovering (and uncommonly well at that), Keith was finally given the “okay” from the doctor to go home, but was advised to have someone check in on him every once in a while for the next couple days. Keith, for all that he didn’t like the idea, was certain that Shiro would be doing that whether he was asked to or not.

In spite of all his layers, the cold air outside was a slap to the face. He wasn’t looking forward to the long walk home, but he had to get there, one way or another. The walk served to show him how truly bone tired he was, swaying a little as he walked, with nothing but the ambient noise of the city in the morning (which was, frankly, much like the city at any other time) to keep him company. Rather than rousing him, the sounds of the city, which he often heard outside the window of his apartment, were almost soothing, to the point where he almost fell asleep on his feet several times. When he rounded the corner to his apartment building, Keith was so relieved he almost fell over right there on the sidewalk. He was in the midst of hurrying towards the building when a thought occurred to him, a thought that, if followed, would most certainly keep him from his bed and the blissful peace of sleep for a bit longer. On the other hand, Keith knew that if he didn’t follow it, he’d be thinking about it well into his dreams, as he often did with things like this. With a frustrated huff, he walked right past his apartment building and towards the Bureau headquarters.

Shiro blinked in surprise when he saw Keith marching towards his desk, then took a stern expression, like he expected to have to tell Keith “no.” Lucky for Keith, this wasn’t a yes or no question.

“Keith,” Shiro started. “You’re not working today.”

“I know. I just need to talk to Lance,” Keith said. “Can you tell me where he is?”

Shiro’s stern expression melted away in an instant, replaced by one of intense curiosity. “He’s working in the analyst’s department today. What are you--”

Keith thanked him and hurried away before Shiro could ask too many questions. Keith liked to think he wasn’t easily embarrassed, but simply imagining the look on Shiro’s face if he knew what Keith was thinking made him want to bury his head under the ground and not emerge for a hundred years. He was aware of how crazy his idea was, acutely so, but he simply blamed it on the concussion and decided to go through with it anyways.

Lance had been tucked away in a back corner of the analyst’s department, at a small desk where he’d been set to drawing up maps for replacers. He was singularly focused on it, bent low over the map he was currently detailing, tongue poking out from between his lips ever so slightly in intense concentration. Keith waited for a moment, watching with uncommon patience, as Lance went back and forth between the map and a nearby book, a log of all the named stars the Bureau had on hand (or at least, one of the logs of some of the stars--replacers could not replace stars as quickly as searchers found them), and carefully mapped where they ought to go in the sky. It was a slow and tedious process, not one that Keith would’ve ever imagined Lance doing. Suddenly, Lance huffed and leaned away from the desk, one of his legs bouncing impatiently. Keith stifled a laugh--that was more about what he would expect.

Lance must’ve heard him though, because he glanced over towards Keith and then nearly jumped out of his chair. Keith laughed outright at that, earning an exaggerated pout from Lance.

“What are you doing?! You can’t just sneak up on people like that!” Lance exclaimed, going on the say that Keith had been lucky the pen wasn’t on the paper, because then he would have to start all over. “And anyways, you’re not supposed to be here today!”

“No, I’m not here to work,” Keith assured him.

“Then why are you here?” Lance asked, eyeing Keith suspiciously.

Keith took a deep breath, knowing that he would chicken out if he waited too long to say it. “Do you want to stay at my place while your ankle heals?”

Lance stared at him for an uncomfortably long amount of time, prompting Keith to elaborate. “My place is only a few minutes walk walk from here, and walking for nearly an hour every day will probably make it harder for your ankle heal, and I know we don’t know each other that well, but I figured I’d offer, since we’re partners and all--”

“Keith,” Lance cut in. “Are you for real?”

“Uh, yeah, otherwise I wouldn’t be saying it,” Keith answered honestly.

Lance leaned back in his chair, apparently turning the idea over in his head. “Aren’t you worried I’ll have weird habits?”

“I know you’ll have weird habits,” Keith said.

“You’re not worried I might rob you?” Lance persisted.

“I don’t think you’re a thief,” Keith huffed. “Do you want to stay at my place while you heal or not?”

“Uh… sure,” Lance said, still a little perplexed by the offer but unable to deny that it had it’s advantages. “I guess I’ll go home tonight, grab some stuff and then come to your place after work tomorrow?”

“Sounds good,” Keith agreed as he grabbed a pen and a spare bit of paper to write down his address on.

Lance, meanwhile, scribbled something on another scrap of paper, and handed it to Keith--a phone number. “In case you realize you hit your head a little harder than you thought,” Lance had said.

Keith went home with his head buzzing, though whether that was because of his concussion or because of what he’d just done (or both), it was hard to say. Regardless, he didn’t give much thought to it once he was in his apartment, focusing more on the prospect of sleep. He only barely managed to shuck off a few of his outer layers before falling into bed, not bothering to turn on the heater or pull a blanket over himself before slipping into that deep sleep he’d been craving all night long.

Now, normally, when Keith was especially exhausted, his mind went to that oft-visited dream place, as if his mind was insistent that he rest, and brought him to a familiar, peaceful place in order to best facilitate that. But instead his dreams were full of vivid lightning and swirling storm clouds, looming with an ominous and chaotic presence. Keith was tossed back and forth at the whim of the winds, trying desperately to find a handhold but finding none. In spite of all this, everything, even Keith himself, was eerily silent, which made him anxious. The colors, on the other hand, were brilliant reds and oranges, touched with occasional deep blue swirls. They seared themselves into his mind, ensuring that he wouldn’t forget them any time soon. 

Keith awoke with a start when the winds suddenly released him, letting him drop to some unknown doom at the same time his front door shut. At first he thought it had been thunder, accompanying the lightning from his dream, but a few seconds of panicked wakefulness later, he realized that wasn’t the case. He rolled out of bed reluctantly--the dream had left him feeling more exhausted than he had felt when he went to sleep. No doubt he would have no trouble getting to bed at a decent time in spite of sleeping away the entire day, he thought as he tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

As he had expected, Shiro had come to check up on him, and had brought food with him once again (he must’ve been feeling extra generous, because it was fast food, which Shiro rarely indulged in but Keith practically survived on). They flopped onto the couch, and Shiro talked of mundane things (how work had been that day, how Lance had loudly complained about being assigned to doing mapwork, how his higher ups weren’t pleased that a certain pair of his searchers seemed to be constantly getting into trouble, and how Shiro had reminded them it’s only been two times they’ve done something dramatic since getting partnered). Keith, meanwhile, stuffed his face, because he’d missed dinner the night before, on account of being barely conscious--he had been offered food through the course of the night, but had refused. He hated hospital food.

“So, not to pry,” Shiro started, clearly about to pry. “What did you want to talk to Lance about earlier?”

Keith tried very hard to not choke on his fries. He still wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Shiro that Lance, of all people, would be staying here with Keith, for at least several weeks. After all, Keith had made such a big deal about not liking Lance initially, and now he was offering his home to the guy to make getting to work easier for him? The last thing Keith wanted was for Shiro to get the wrong idea.

“I just wanted to make sure he was doing okay,” Keith said, not entirely dishonestly.

“Oh?” Shiro prodded.

“Yes,” Keith said sternly. “Believe it or not I think he’s alright… as a partner.”

“As a partner, huh?”

“Is there something you’d like to know?” Keith demanded, his patience flying out the window at Shiro’s tone.

“No,” Shiro denied. “It’s just that I’ve never seen you change your tune about someone so quickly.”

“He--just made a bad first impression, was all!” Keith stammered, decidedly not looking at Shiro.

He expected Shiro to make another quip immediately, but instead he went quiet for a moment, sighing softly. “You know, apparently I made a bad first impression on Adam when we first met?”

Keith froze. True, it had been almost a year by now, but to actually hear Shiro talk about Adam… He looked over at him, and Shiro looked fondly nostalgic. Elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped together and his chin resting lightly on top of them--not long ago, he would’ve looked stiff and uncomfortable at anything that even remotely reminded him of Adam, but now… Now Keith could finally believe that he might be moving on.

Which left Keith to deal with a very important implication. “Lance and I are not like you and Adam, not by a long shot.”

Shiro chuckled, leaning back. “No?”

“No,” Keith insisted. “We are way too different. Maybe we can be friends, but that’s it. Besides, even if I did like Lance like that, which I don’t, he has a girlfriend.”

Shiro raised his eyebrows at that. “He does?”

“Yeah, uh, a replacer--I think her name was Allura?” Keith explained haltingly. He wasn’t very good at remembering names, but he was pretty certain he got that one right. “Anyways, they’ve known each other since they were kids, apparently.”

“Huh,” Shiro huffed. “I had no idea.”

“Well, now you know, so can we drop the subject, please?” Keith pleaded, feeling very much bothered by even the barest implication that he might feel anything more than friendliness towards Lance.

“Alright, alright,” Shiro relented, flipping on the TV, landing on a talk show where people were theorizing why in the world the sun hadn’t been found yet.

“Now you would think,” the host said enthusiastically. “That this great big ball of light, I mean it looked how many times bigger to us than other stars? It’s got to be at least the size of a soccer ball, compared to other stars, and yet there hasn’t been a whisper of it--now, why do you suppose that might be?”

“Well now, you’ve got to consider that, at the end of the day, the sun is still a star, you know?” one of the guests suggested. “You’re absolutely right that it should be easy to find--and perhaps it was. Perhaps by some child who didn’t know any better, or perhaps someone who wanted to wish for something that regular stars couldn’t grant--”

Keith nearly gave himself whiplash as he leaned eagerly forward, suddenly intent on the discussion now.

“But what makes you think that the sun could grant things that regular stars couldn’t, if it could grant a wish at all?” another guest questioned sharply.

“If we look at all the factors, we get an idea of what the sun might be able to do. This is our sun we’re talking about, it’s always been special to us, even if we know that it’s just another star now. Even knowing it’s just a star, it’s still special to us, has been for as long as humans have been around,” the first guest explained. “So, the sun is large, it’s a star, it’s been regarded as a symbol of health and vitality for as long as we’ve known, and in many cultures has been regarded as a powerful god, oftentimes the king of gods--”

“Hold on, hold on, what do human stories have to do with any of this?” the host interrupted waving his hands energetically.

“Personally, I think it’s human stories that gave stars the power to grant wishes in the first place--after all, we humans have been making wishes on stars for goodness knows how long, and then they come down to earth and it turns out we really can make wishes on them? I don’t believe in coincidences like that,” the guest argued.

Shiro, not noticing how intent Keith was on the discussion, moved to change the channel, upon which Keith rapidly moved to stop him, perhaps a little more aggressively than he should have.

“Geez, alright, didn’t know you were suddenly fascinated with talk shows like this,” Shiro huffed.

Keith glared, but said nothing as he turned his attention back to the discussion.

“--and how do we know that the Celestial Replacement Bureau hasn’t already found it, but is keeping it from us?” the second guest was now demanding. “They act like they alone should have control over all matters regarding the sky, that the stars should be regulated. If the sun can do what you say it can and they have it, what if--”

“You’re not seriously suggesting that the Bureau is out for world domination?!” the first guest interrupted.

Keith huffed as the discussion devolved into an argument, and told Shiro he could change the channel now. Shiro looked suspicious, but said nothing as he flipped through the channels for something more interesting to watch. But whatever he turned it to, Keith was already tuning it out, busy turning over the idea in his head over and over again. That person had been correct, in that the sun really was just another star, just the one that happened to make life on earth possible. It had immediately occurred to Keith that if it could grant wishes, wishes that other stars were unable to grant, it just might be that it could grant someone the ability to control lightning with no ill effects… Not that he could tell that to Shiro, of course, not without concrete proof, or at least a more reliable account of it. Keith had to tell Lance.

Slowly, so as to not be noticed by Shiro, Keith fished out the scrap of paper with Lance’s number, and quietly tapped the number with a message into his phone.

“I was watching a talk show that suggested that the sun could grant wishes, maybe that snatcher found it and wished for the ability to control lightning?” the message read.

He only had to wait a few minutes before his phone buzzed in reply. Shiro gave no indication that he noticed.

“You know, most people send their names when texting people for the first time, not conspiracy theories,” the reply said. Keith wondered for a panicked instant if he’d typed in the number wrong, until a second message arrived, saying, “But that would make a lot of sense. Either she wished for the ability to control lightning, or the ability to predict where it’ll strike, in which case she just got very lucky against us. But if she wished for the ability to control lightning…”

“That’d leave us with a mess of problems. It’d mean that the sun was gone for good, and that we have some criminal running around with lightning powers doing whatever she pleased,” Keith replied.

“No kidding. Any chance we can let people in on this? I feel like we’re not best equipped to deal with this right now…” Lance suggested.

“Maybe you could, but with my concussion there’s no way anyone would believe me, but even without it I’m not sure anyone would believe any of us,” Keith said.

“Yeah, I don’t think anyone wants to deal with the idea that the sun might be gone for good…”

“Who’re you texting over there?” Shiro suddenly asked.

Keith nearly dropped his phone, having been so intent on the conversation that he had forgotten to make sure Shiro didn’t notice. He fumbled to keep his phone in his hand, looking the very picture of someone who wanted to hide something.

“Don’t worry about it!” he snapped before he could think twice.

“Okay! Jeez, I was only wondering…” Shiro held his hand up defensively, taken aback by Keith’s sudden prickliness. Not that it was entirely unusual for Keith, but he did tend to be a little less so around Shiro.

Keith did feel bad for snapping at him, but somehow felt like he would have to reveal who he was talking to if he apologized, so he said nothing. Shiro left shortly afterwards, leaving Keith to feel even worse about it. It meant that they had to find proof about this snatcher’s mysterious abilities quickly. The sooner Keith could tell Shiro all about it, and properly apologize for this, and perhaps and future occurrences like this, the better.

Meanwhile, he was still texting Lance about what he’d heard on the talk show. While he was on board with the idea that the sun, as a star, might be able to grant extraordinary wishes, he wasn’t certain about the idea that human stories had any influence on anything other than humans themselves. Lance, however, was of a different opinion, agreeing with the talk show guest with much enthusiasm.

“It makes sense!” Lance insisted. “You can’t deny that it makes sense!”

“I can, because it doesn’t,” Keith replied, while snorting in anticipation of Lance’s heated response.

It took longer than previous messages, but eventually the passionate response came, “Listen!!! Magic is cool and mystical and mysterious BUT there’s always rules, so maybe, just maybe, the rule of this world is that the magic of stars follows the narrative of the stories we’ve given them? Think about it!! What are some things we’re not allowed to wish for from stars?! We can’t wish people back to life! We can’t wish for superpowers! We can’t wish for all our problems to be fixed in an instant! We can’t wish for people to fall in love against their will! All these things were defined in stories that happened way before the fall!!!”

Intrigued, but more interested in egging Lance on, Keith typed, “Wow, didn’t take you for much of a bookworm.”

“I’m not, but Allura is,” was the unexpectedly straightforward reply that abruptly halted Keith’s snickering. “She’ll talk for ages about stories and stuff, even if I’m not listening, but I listen enough to catch the gist.”

“Anyways,” Keith continued, frowning. “Even if you’re right and the stars do follow rules, why would the sun be an exception?”

“Because it’s the sun????” Lance responded, as though it were obvious.

“Gee, thanks, what a super helpful explanation,” Keith said, flopping backwards onto his bed.

“The sun, even though it’s a star, has different stories. Different stories, different rules, right?” Lance suggested.

“I guess,” Keith replied. 

“And I suppose you have a better theory as to how any of this works?” Lance challenged.

Keith must’ve deliberated too long about an alternative theory, because a few minutes later Lance texted him again, “You don’t! Ha!! I win >:)”

“You do not!”

“Did so, nothing you can do about it.”

“>:(“

“Lance: 1, Keith: 0”

They went back and forth for at least twenty more minutes, with Keith insisting he was on the scoreboard because of the several days they’d bothered to count stars they’d collected and he’d come out on top. Lance denied this, but quickly added points for himself for the days where Lance had collected more stars. By the time they bid each other good night (with Lance making sure that Keith was still okay with him staying over), Keith was smiling again, feeling unusually, yet pleasantly warm.

The next day, Keith had been told by Shiro to stay home--it would be his last day off to recover from his concussion (given that the next couple days were a weekend), and Keith, at first, used it to tidy up his apartment. He was going to have a guest over, after all. Unfortunately, his apartment was small and his possessions few, and he wasn’t a generally messy person, so it didn’t take him very long to finish. The rest of the day he spent in varying states of restless boredom. There was nothing interesting on TV, he owned very few books (but he didn’t want to go the library in case Lance was let off work early), and any video games he had on hand couldn’t hold his attention for more than an hour or so. When a tentative knock came at his front door, Keith all but ran to answer it.

Lance still had his fist raised when the door flew open, and for a moment they just stood there, unsure of what to say or do. Finally Keith gathered enough sense about him to gesture for Lance to come in, to which Lance obliged, dragging a large duffle bag behind him. Keith closed the door gently, running a hand through his hair. Why he was so agitated he couldn’t say for sure, but it was definitely Lance’s fault. For all he knew, the next couple of months were about to become a constant battle between the two of them.

“Nice place you got,” Lance said, setting his bag down near the couch.

“Uh, thanks,” Keith replied. “I know it’s pretty small, but it’s just me most of the time…”

Lance waved a hand. “Nah, it’s fine. It’s practical, like you.”

What Keith could possibly say to that, he had no idea, so he said nothing. Meanwhile, Lance shuffled in place, as if he wasn’t sure of where to go, or what to do.

Keith was just about to suggest they order something for dinner, when Lance said, “Hey man… Thanks, for this. Normally that walk to and from work is no problem for me, but with my ankle the way it is, it’s been… hard. And it’s only been, what, a day?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Keith mumbled, eyes averted.

“Don’t tell me to not worry about it, this is a big deal!” Lance suddenly exclaimed, startling Keith slightly. “I dump you in the ocean, give you nothing but trouble for an entire week, and you still let me stay at your place so that it’s easier for me to get to work, and then you tell me to not worry about it--what’s your deal?”

“So you admit it! The ocean incident was your fault!” Keith blurted, even though he had intended on answer Lance’s question, after an entire week of getting blamed for the ocean incident, Keith couldn’t quite help but to pounce at this opportunity.

Lance sputtered at that, trying to backpedal as fast as he could and failing spectacularly. “I didn’t--that wasn’t--just answer the question! What’s your deal?!”

“Why do I have to have a deal?! Am I not allowed to do nice things for other people?!”

“No, someone who says ‘we’re partners, not friends’ doesn’t do nice things for other people for no reason!” Lance shouted, suddenly and unexpectedly angry.

Perhaps a more reasonable person would’ve apologized for their earlier behavior and comments, and try to assure someone that they were actually a decent human being, just a bit brackish at times. But Keith was not known for being terribly reasonable, especially where Lance was concerned. He was ready to lash out, scream and yell and fight, just as he’d expected, when his front door clicked open, and both he and Lance froze on the spot, their eyes fixed in horror on the opening door.

Shiro, unlike Keith, had much better composure, and so did not immediately react when he saw Lance standing in Keith’s apartment. Or perhaps it had less to do with refined composure and more to do with the fact that he was probably too stunned to say anything at first. Keith didn’t miss the way Shiro’s eyes glanced at the duffle bag near Lance’s feet, getting a grasp of what, exactly was going on here without anyone having said a single word.

“Keith, you should’ve told me you had company,” Shiro said evenly. “I wouldn’t have come over if I’d known.”

“Yes you would’ve,” Keith huffed.

Shiro shrugged, and stepped all the way into the apartment, looking utterly delighted as he asked Lance what they should order for dinner. He motioned them both towards the couch, where he sat right in between the two of them, which was probably for the best given what had just nearly happened between them. Keith was almost tempted to invite Shiro to stay over as a mediator, but Shiro would no doubt encourage Keith to use this as an opportunity to learn patience. Not to mention, his tiny, one bedroom apartment could only hold so many people. Even if Shiro was one of the people in it, Keith doubted his sanity would hold strong with two extra people in his living space. 

“So, Lance,” Shiro began, in that tone that suggested he was about to get nosey. “What brings you here?”

Lance scratched at the back of his neck, a little uneasy. “Uh, well, I happened to mention to Keith that I live a ways away, and he thought it kind of sucked that I had to walk so far with an injured ankle… So he offered to let me stay here until my ankle is better…”

From where Keith was sitting, he couldn’t see Shiro’s expression, but he was willing to bet Shiro looked incredibly interested by this delightful bit of information. Lance, at the very least, looked a little distressed as he glanced past Shiro towards Keith, at which point Shiro suddenly whipped around to look at Keith, looking, just as he’d suspected, absolutely thrilled.

“That’s very interesting news,” Shiro said simply, implying heavily that he would like to know more about how, exactly, this happened.

With Keith already on the verge of snapping, however, his explanation wasn’t so much an explanation as a heated defense of his own actions. “Am I just not allowed to do nice things?! Why does it have to be a big deal for me to be a good person?! Do you guys just assume that I’m going to default to whichever is the most mean and uncaring?!”

That seemed to take both Shiro and Lance by surprise. Keith didn’t wait for them to make any sort of response before storming off to his room and slamming his door shut like a petulant child. He knew he was going to feel ashamed of his actions later, but right now he felt white-hot with anger. He pushed the window open--it was difficult, given that windows weren’t often opened anymore, and even Keith hadn’t had any reason to open it. Usually turning off his heater was enough. But right now he needed to feel something icy cold against his face. Everything felt like it was on fire as Keith leaned against the window frame, the stark contrast of the frame on his skin an abrupt shock, but a welcome one. He stayed like that for a few minutes, breathing deep and trying to dispel this feverish feeling that had overtaken him.

After a few minutes, he started to feel a bit of a chill, and closed his window. He wasn’t yet ready to go back out to the living room and face Shiro and Lance though, so he lied down on his bed and listened to their quiet chatter. He thought he could hear Shiro assuring Lance that Keith was, deep down, a big softie, which of course Keith would have to disprove later, but it was hard to be sure. It wasn’t like he was trying to listen to them, anyways.

He stayed where he was for a couple of hours, never quite falling asleep, but never quite focusing all his attention on whatever Shiro and Lance were talking about. A knock at the front door told Keith that they had ordered food, and Shiro knocked at his door to let him know he’d ordered something for Keith as well. Keith didn’t respond, but made a mental note to thank Shiro later, and then apologize for his behavior. It seemed like he was stacking up a lot of IOU’s in the apology department as of late. He really ought to fix that, he thought to himself.

A short time later, he heard Shiro leaving, and for a few moments, everything was silent. He wondered if Lance had felt unwelcome, and left, despite having just arrived. Keith rolled over and buried his face in a pillow when he heard a soft tap at his door.

“Hey, Keith?” Lance called from the other side. “I’m… sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to imply that you aren’t capable of doing good things. I was just--surprised, was all.”

Keith sighed deeply, and walked over to the door. His hand hovered over the doorknob, but the words came out before the door was open. “You’re fine. I shouldn’t have snapped the way I did. I guess I’m more used to pushing people out than inviting them in--not that that’s an excuse, I just. I’m not good, with people stuff.”

He heard Lance chuckle softly. “Yeah, I gathered as much.”

There was a brief moment of silence, during which Keith leaned his head against the door, feeling as though he could breathe a bit easier now. This silence wasn’t heavy with awkwardness, but soft with something like understanding, even if it wasn’t yet complete.

“So are we going to talk about that snatcher and how we’ll track her down, or are we going to bed now?” Lance asked through the door.

Keith opened the door, and suddenly felt awkward again. It was one thing talking to someone when you couldn’t see their face--it was quite another when they were looking you right in the eye, grinning wryly with a shining blue gaze. Keith very deliberately looked away as he walked down the hall past Lance, and he could’ve sworn he heard Lance snort, but let him be as he settled onto the couch.

“So!” Lance began enthusiastically, clapping his hands together. “Where do we start? I was thinking we could see where lightning has been striking in the past to see if there’s a pattern, or if she just hits snatchers at random.”

“That--is actually a good idea,” Keith said. He was just about to pull out his laptop from underneath the coffee table when a sound like boxes tumbling to the ground somewhere in the building made him whip his head up so quickly that he hit his head on the edge of the table on his way up.

“Jeez, don’t give yourself another concussion!” Lance exclaimed as they both hurried over to the window.

Lance complained when Keith threw the window open, letting in all the cold air that neither of them were dressed for. Keith shushed him, and they listened for what had surely been thunder, scanning the skies for any sign of lightning. Lance was still grumbling about the cold, and sidled closer to Keith than Keith would’ve liked, but he let him, for the time being. They stayed that way for some time, listening and watching intently. Several times Lance suggested, through chattering teeth, that they just go with the original plan, but Keith shushed him every time. It wasn’t until Lance was practically on top of him that Keith finally sighed and started to close the window--and as if waiting for him to give up, another crack of lightning tore through the sky in the distance.

“How’re we going to get all the way over there?” Lance asked even as he started throwing on a coat.

“I’ve got a broom,” Keith said as he raced to pull on his boots.

“You have a private license?”

“Nope!”

Lance opened his mouth as though to protest going by broom without a license, especially when both of them were supposed to be grounded, but instead simply said, “Okay then.”

A few minutes later, and they were outside, trying to figure out how to fit both of them on a single broom. Keith insisted that he take control of the broom, given that Lance was prone to loopy and over the top flying and they need to be quick and careful. Lance huffed and puffed about it, but ultimately settled himself on the back end of the broom, wrapping his arms tightly around Keith’s waist. Keith had never flown with another person on the broom before, but he found that he welcomed the extra warmth for once. He may have, in his haste, put on fewer layers than necessary.

Thus settled, it took them a couple tries to take off, since, as they quickly discovered, they both had to push off from the ground at the same time. They tried counting down, only to start arguing as to whether it should be on “three” or on “go”. Keith argued that, as the one in control of the broom, he should be the one counting down, and they should go on “three”, while Lance insisted that, as the one who could only push off with one foot, he should be the one counting down, and that they should obviously push off on “go”, to which Keith snapped that the extra word was a complete waste of time and they were better off just counting to three. It wasn’t until another bolt of lightning struck that they ceased their bickering and finally took off (on three).

Lance hugged Keith even tighter as they sped through the air, to the point where it was nearly bruising (Keith had always bruised easily), but Keith said nothing of it. They were lucky that this snatcher, if she really could command lightning, had a flair for dramatics. Keith wondered if there had been a time that only one bolt of lightning had been used. When he and Lance had encountered her, there had been, what, four? Five lightning strikes in the same area? Keith couldn’t remember for certain, but it was, as far as he knew, a lot of lightning in a single spot. So far there’d been three in the same spot. Too many to be a coincidence, as far as Keith was concerned.

When they got close to the approximate area they’d seen the lightning strike, Keith flew in low, under the tree tops of the nearby forested area, but not quite landing--it would be easier to navigate the woods in the air instead of trying to hurry along with Lance and his injured ankle. Granted, trying to fly above all the brambles without hitting their heads on any low hanging branches was nearly just as much of a challenge. They kept quiet, and the woods around them were quiet too--enough that Keith could hear Lance’s soft breathing from behind him.

Suddenly, Lance pointed up ahead, where a flickering light was casting heavy shadows through the trees. They finally touched down a ways away from where they saw the light, with Lance slinging an arm over Keith’s shoulders in order to keep up with him. As they made their slow, careful approach, Keith could taste smoke in the air--the lightning must’ve started a fire. He glanced at Lance, who met him with a determined nod. They would move forward.

They kept to the shadows, moving slowly so as to not make a sound. Keith highly doubted the snatchers would stick around, but they’d come all this way, they had to be sure before flying away again. Keith’s eyes began to sting as the air became heavy with smoke. They could see the flames in a clearing up ahead, taller than either of them and spreading quickly.

“There’s no way anyone would stick around for this,” Lance coughed beside him. Keith was quite inclined to agree.

That was, until a lone silhouette made its way in front of the blaze, seemingly unbothered by the embers, heat, and smoke. Keith immediately dove behind the nearest tree, dragging Lance roughly along with him. Lance, to his credit, let out only the barest hiss as his bad ankle was jostled in his haste to follow Keith. They crouched low in the stark shadows, Keith hoping desperately that it would be enough to keep them concealed. So far his head was alright, but he didn’t want to push it, and Lance was not in the most agile of states. If they were actually found by a snatcher, particularly the one they were looking for, it would most certainly not end well for them.

Peering around the tree, Keith saw two more figures join the first, arms held over their faces in a weak attempt to breathe a bit more easily. They looked agitated, arguing with the first figure. But the first figure seemed completely at ease, waving them away dismissively. Keith wished they were a little closer, so he could hear them over the crackle of the rapidly spreading wildfire--speaking of which, he and Lance would definitely have to leave soon. It was all he could do to keep from sputtering on the smoke-filled air.

When Keith’s eyes began to water, he was about to suggest that they leave, lest the fire and smoke overtake them, but then the first figure began making their way towards their hiding spot, and they both recoiled behind the tree, backs pressed up against the trunk. Keith felt his heart pounding a bruise into his ribs. If they were lucky, they might be able to make a quick escape if they were caught--after all, they still had their broom. Better to not get caught in the first place though. Beside him, Lance was trying to stifle a cough, and Keith slapped a hand over his mouth, the figure walking ever closer to where they were crouched. Keith hoped and hoped that the shadows kept them hidden, repeated it like a mantra in his head--he would fight if he absolutely had to, but all things considered, the odds would not be in his favor.

“Terrell!” one of the other figures called out, catching up to the first person. “There’s no one here!”

The first person, Terrell, was now close enough that Keith could confirm that this was indeed the snatcher they’d encountered the other day. He heard her hum thoughtfully, while another one of her lackeys joined her, coughing and sputtering and holding a damp cloth over his face.

“I thought for sure…” she mused. She turned her attention to the surrounding woods, as though looking for something.

Her gaze was careful and scrutinizing, and Keith knew he was holding Lance far too tightly as he hoped that, between the fire and the shadows, they remained invisible to her searching eye. He thought for sure they were done for when her eyes looked right at them, even pausing for a brief instant. Keith tensed, everything in his body ready to spring into action in a second--and then she looked away, giving no indication that she’d seen them at all. Keith and Lance exchanged confused looks, but didn’t question the incredible blessing.

“Oh sunshine! Where are you?!” Terrell suddenly called out. “I know you’re around here somewhere!”

“Terrell, there’s no one here, we have to go before the authorities show up,” one of the other snatchers choked.

Even then, Terrell seemed more focused on whatever, or whoever, she was looking for. She sniffed, and then coughed, for the first time seeming to be affected by the smoke curling around her. She looked incredibly unhappy.

“Fine,” she huffed. “Let’s go. We’ll find him another day. If I didn’t know better I’d say he was here right now, but…”

Terrell shook her head, and trudged away from where Keith and Lance were still hiding. As soon as she was out of sight, they stumbled away from the wildfire, and managed to take off without a hitch--perhaps the impending threat of the fire and the wailing of sirens fostered better teamwork between them. Regardless, by the time they returned to Keith’s apartment, they were gasping and hardly able to articulate what had just happened. They still didn’t have any proof as to her supposed lightning abilities, but she had without a doubt started that fire on purpose.

“So,” Lance breathed heavily, flopping down onto the couch. “She’s not your average snatcher.”

“No,” Keith agreed. “It sounds like she’s looking for someone.”

“But why would she need to start a fire to find someone?” Lance asked.

Keith draped his jacket over the back of the couch before flopping down next to Lance. “I don’t know. We didn’t even confirm whether or not she’s used the sun or not. All we have is a name.”

“True… but I think we can safely say that she’s never had the sun,” Lance said.

“What makes you say that?” Keith asked.

“Because,” Lance started seriously. “Whoever she was looking for, she called them sunshine. I don’t think that was a coincidence. Whoever she’s looking for, they probably have the sun.”

“Maybe,” Keith said thoughtfully. “But she also said that she was sure that whoever it was, she was sure they were there. According to the other snatchers, there was no one else there, no one aside from us and the snatchers.”

“Yeah, but Terrell looked right at us and didn’t see us. Maybe whoever she was looking for was able to hide too,” Lance suggested.

“Maybe,” Keith repeated, feeling exhausted.

“You think maybe it’s time we told someone about all this?” Lance asked a few moments later.

Keith considered it. It would be easy enough to leave out the part where they flew without a license, and they did have a name now, and the knowledge that this Terrell was up to something more than normal snatcher shenanigans, and she would go to dangerous lengths to find whoever it was she was looking for.

“Yeah,” Keith finally answered with a slight nod. “I think that might be best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! The next chapter has been giving me some grief, and I've been travelling, but it should hopefully be done and ready to be posted by next week. We'll see. If it's not, I'll make an announcement on my klance sideblog, stories-in-the-stars.tumblr.com. Thanks again to everyone reading, I may not know you but I adore you.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! Another week, another chapter! This one for some reason gave me a lot of grief, probably because there's a lot less action than I would like. If you see any typos or some wording that just doesn't make sense, please (nicely) let me know, I would super appreciate it!

They stayed up far too late that night, revelling in their close call with the snatchers and the wildfire they’d started, which, by the time they’d returned to Keith’s apartment, had grown so large that they could see the glow of it from the living room window. They felt a twinge of guilt, having fled the scene without doing anything, but then, they weren’t supposed to have been there in the first place. No doubt they would’ve been prime suspects for starting the fire, if the snatchers hadn’t been found (which they both assumed that they probably hadn’t been).

After the excitement of their little adventure had faded away, however, they had to agree upon a story to tell Shiro--as their direct supervisor, he would be the one they had to report this to first. No doubt he wouldn’t believe that they’d been out on a casual stroll, but if they were lucky he might not press them for too many details. If they got their story straight enough, anyways. They spent hours going back and forth, suggesting reasons as to why they might’ve been out that way anyways, how they managed to not see the snatchers starting the fire, why they didn’t stick around to give a statement to the authorities…

“There’s no way he’s going to believe us,” Keith sighed a few minutes past midnight.

“Not with that attitude,” Lance replied, stretching his feet casually across Keith’s lap.

Keith, to his credit, did not immediately shove Lance’s feet off of him, purely out of consideration of Lance’s injured ankle. Still, he did not like the idea of being used as a footrest. When he told Lance as much, however, Lance grinned mischievously and promptly shoved his (good) foot directly into Keith’s face. They scuffled playfully for a few minutes, until Keith straight up (accidentally, he sincerely claimed) flipped Lance onto the floor. Rather than yelling about it, however, Lance laughed so brightly that Keith couldn’t help but laugh too, even as Lance kicked him in retaliation.

Normally, at this time, Keith would already be in bed, idly scrolling through social media, but when he suggested that they turn in for the night, Lance’s eyes sparkled like a kid at a slumber party and insisted they watch a movie. Besides, he pointed out, Keith hadn’t had dinner, and he ought to eat something before going to bed. Keith had missed dinner plenty of times before, but for some reason decided to go along with Lance’s whims, reheating the takeout that Shiro had ordered earlier while Lance chose a movie. Keith had a feeling that their tastes in movies differed as much as they themselves seemed to, but was looking forward to another opportunity to tease Lance.

When he flopped back onto the couch, Lance had paused his channel flipping on something where the people used far too many fancy words to say whatever it was they wanted to say and dressed in clothing of a bygone time. Keith made a face.

“We’re not seriously watching this, are we?” he asked.

“Oh, no, this is just one of Allura’s favorite’s is all,” Lance answered absently, flipping through the channels once more. “I try and watch stuff like this sometimes, but the way people talk is just way too flowery…”

As Lance found a better movie (some action/thriller type), he continued to explain that he really did try to see why Allura liked period dramas so much, but they just really weren’t his thing. Keith, for the entirety of the movie, only gave half-hearted agreements and hums, even long after he’d finished his food. Lance, rather than assuming Keith was being unfriendly again, began to tease Keith for being an old man that couldn’t stay up too late, thinking that he was just sleepy. Keith brushed it off with seemingly tired smiles, all the way until Lance ushered him to bed. He had been thinking of offering Lance the bed, but Lance seemed all too content to sprawl out on the couch that was very nearly too small for him. Keith lied awake for an hour afterwards, tossing and turning and feeling frustratingly agitated. Eventually (thankfully) sleep took him, and he slept a dreamless sleep through the night.

He slept later than he normally did, but Lance was still asleep, snoring gently with his face nearly completely covered by a pillow. Keith huffed, suddenly irritated again for no good reason. A quick shower later, and he felt a bit better, and Lance was awake. He was lounging on the couch with his ankle propped up, one arm stretched over his head, the picture of poised relaxation. Keith’s mysterious agitation returned, and he attributed it to the fact that he rarely had anyone over, much less overnight. 

“Wow, and I thought I wasn’t a morning person,” Lance commented upon noticing Keith. “What’s got you so grumpy?”

Keith merely huffed in reply, stalking into the kitchen for some leftovers from last night’s takeout. Meanwhile, Lance decided to take a shower that ended up lasting at least an hour. This itself wasn’t a problem, given that Keith had already taken a shower, but he seemed to be acutely aware of where Lance was in the apartment at all times, even as he tried to distract himself in any way he could. He ended up staring aimlessly out the window, where a street light was flickering annoyingly.

He had quite spaced out by the time Lance was done, and nearly jumped out of his skin when Lance asked, “This isn’t seriously how you spend your weekends, is it?”

“No!” Keith denied fervently, though honestly it wasn’t far off. He just wasn’t much one for going out and about, was all.

Lance very clearly did not believe him.

“You should come hang out with me and Allura!” he suggested brightly. “Allura wouldn’t mind, but I have to remind you that you two are not allowed to become friends, unless you agree to not roast me constantly.”

“No thanks,” Keith muttered, scowling.

“Aw, come on, Keith, we’re going to the sunflower fields! You could use some sunshine, I think--”

“I said no thanks!” Keith snapped.

“Okay! Jeez, just trying to be friendly!” Lance recoiled, grabbing his crutch. “See you later, I guess.”

And without another word he was gone, hopefully, Keith thought, for the majority of the day. If Keith got this agitated just from having Lance spend the night, he wasn’t looking forward to the next few weeks of living and working with him--they would need time apart whenever possible. Yet even an hour after Lance had left, Keith found himself restless and prickly and unable to settle on any of his usual hobbies. With an exasperated huff, Keith threw on a coat and decided to go for a walk, deciding that, if nothing else, he could at least wear himself out to the point where he would be too tired to be irritated.

The frigid outside air was enough to sap the majority of his frustrations away, but Keith walked anyways, feeling as though if he went back inside it would all come rushing back. So aimlessly he walked, expertly weaving his way around the huddles of people moving up and down the sidewalk. Even with the earth around them collapsing, humans were determined to live as they pleased. Keith understood that all too well. It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he’d started to truly understand the state the world was in. After all, he’d been born into this world. For him, the constant dark and ever-present cold were normal. More than normal, he almost welcomed them, even with so many that insisted that times before the fall were better, the earth more beautiful and vibrant. Plenty of pictures supported their point, and Keith thought that, maybe, if he’d been born into that world, rather than this one, he might agree with them.

As a child, he’d been fascinated by pictures of the sun, particularly those that his dad showed him. He couldn’t count how many times he’d asked his dad why the sun turned the sky blue any more than he could count all the different reasons his dad gave: because blue was a good color, because the sky was sad, because the sky was happy (Keith, at the time, had severely protested that a color couldn’t be happy and sad at the same time), and a myriad of other reasons that Keith wished that he’d written down. Now, thinking of the sun was nothing particularly special to Keith--if anything, he preferred not to think about it too much. It always led him to think of his father, and then his absent mother, and then anything and everything else that made him feel bad, which was the exact opposite of what he wanted to accomplish with this walk.

Still, his thoughts were as aimless as his walk, and by the time he’d run through all the things in his head from the past that upset him, Keith had been walking for nearly an hour. His hands, even gloved and shoved in his pockets, were well frozen, so Keith decided to duck into a nearby cafe and grab a warm drink before heading back home.

The cafe was bustling with activity. It was around lunchtime now, and plenty of people had the same idea as Keith. Being by himself, Keith was seated reasonably quickly, and he decided it couldn’t hurt to grab a bite to eat while he was here as well. He was just starting to look over the menu when he heard someone call out his name.

At first glance, he thought perhaps there was just someone here who shared his name, or he might’ve even heard wrong, but then he saw Pidge and Hunk frantically waving him over from another table. Smiling, he joined them without hesitation.

“Hey Keith, what brings you here?” Hunk asked.

Keith shrugged. “I was in the area, needed something warm to eat. What are you guys up to?”

“Celebrating,” Pidge answered with a smile that suggested she was very pleased with herself.

“Yeah, Pidge applied to the solar task force and they practically accepted her on the spot,” Hunk explained enthusiastically.

“What? Pidge that’s great!” Keith congratulated, giving her a small (if awkward) pat on the shoulder.

“Thanks, I start on Monday--or at least, I start going through processing to get my access badge on Monday. But man, I can’t wait to see what really goes on in there, I’m so excited!” Pidge tittered, bouncing in her seat.

“You’re going to tell us all about what’s in there, right?” Hunk prodded.

“Of course, what’s the point of getting in there if I don’t get to tell you guys what the deal is?” Pidge assured him.

Keith snorted. “I’m pretty sure it’s kept classified for a reason.”

“I mean, yeah, but that’s pretty much just to keep people from outside the Bureau from keeping track of the search and then swooping in at the last second on any given lead and potentially grabbing the sun right out from under our noses,” Pidge said.

“You don’t think anyone inside the Bureau wouldn’t do that?” Keith pointed out cynically.

“Plenty of people in the Bureau would, but I’m talking about you guys,” Pidge insisted. “I’m pretty sure you guys aren’t trying to hoard the sun for yourselves, right?”

“I don’t know, it’d probably be a great replacement for the heater at home,” Hunk joked.

“Anyways, it’s not like I’d tell you guys stuff that is like, officially classified,” Pidge assured the ever-cynical Keith. “Just stuff that’s going on, you know?”

“Like if they hoard all the good coffee,” Hunk suggested.

“Precisely,” Pidge agreed with a sage nod.

After ordering their food and drinks, Hunk inquired as to how Keith was doing, what with his concussion and all. Keith admitted that he was feeling really well, and had only had a few headaches since the concussion. He had a follow up appointment on Monday, but he was confident it would go really well. It was surprising, he admitted, given his tendency to fall ill easily and take forever to recover from injuries.

“Yeah, I remember that one time you got sick for like, two weeks,” Pidge commented. “Even when you came back you were still looking like death itself.”

“Oof, I can’t imagine getting that sick,” Hunk added. “I guess your bad luck is turning around though, if you’re recovering from your concussion already. Then again, some people can recover in like, twenty-four hours if they’re really lucky…”

“This is luck enough for me, that I’ll be able to be back at work on Monday,” Keith said.

Lunch with Pidge and Hunk lasted nearly two hours, astounding all of them. Hunk shrugged with a laugh, supposing that they must’ve been having a really good time for the time to have gotten away from them so easily. It genuinely surprised Keith, who had never been much of a social person, but was grateful for it, as he was in a much better mood than he’d been in earlier. Maybe he and Lance could be civil with one another when Lance got back from his date.

Unfortunately, fate had different ideas. When Keith returned to his apartment, he found Lance curled up next to the door, looking positively sour.

He scowled when he saw Keith walking up. “You could’ve told me you had plans today.”

“I didn’t,” Keith replied, unlocking the door. “I went for a walk and stayed out longer than expected. I didn’t know when you’d be back.”

“Could’ve texted me,” Lance huffed, refusing the helping hand that Keith offered as he pushed himself up to standing.

“You could’ve texted me too,” Keith said, irritation spiking again. “If I had known you were waiting I might’ve come back sooner.”

Lance said nothing as he stalked into the apartment, making a beeline for the couch, where he slumped with a frown and crossed arms. He stared resolutely out the window, and Keith stood near the door at a loss for what to do. So Lance had returned before him--that wasn’t entirely Keith’s fault! He was now considering having a spare key made, just so that this wouldn’t happen again, but as Keith had said, Lance could’ve very well texted or called. Keith was frowning as he kicked off his shoes and flipped on the heat, maybe a little higher than he would normally turn it (it looked like Lance was shivering), and joined Lance on the couch, albeit at the very opposite end.

“So… how were the sunflower fields?” Keith asked tentatively.

“Fine,” Lance answered shortly.

Keith inhaled deeply, trying to maintain some semblance of patience. “How’s your ankle?”

“Bad,” Lance said in a clipped tone.

“Do you want some painkillers?”

“I don’t need you to nanny me.”

Keith bristled at that. “I’m not trying to nanny you, I’m just trying to be nice! Didn’t we go through this already?”

“I just--you don’t need to go out of your way to take care of me, I’m fine,” Lance insisted, still looking out the window.

“It’s not a big deal--”

 

“It’s a big deal to me, okay?!” Lance snapped. “So just--leave me alone!”

Without another word, Keith stormed off to his room, feeling every bit a petulant child as he closed the door a little harder than he ought to. They both went to sleep that night without resolving their argument. The next day was spent in suspenseful silence. Keith thought he would have welcomed it, but the silence came with a price: the air was heavy and taut between the two of them, and Keith had no idea what to do about it. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more aggravated he became about it. He couldn’t very well kick Lance out (he could, but it would be a less than savory thing to do, in Keith’s eyes), but Lance, for once, was reluctant to talk. The hours stretched on and on, and Keith, desperate for some relief, went to bed a couple hours earlier than he normally would. Exhausted as he was from increasingly pent up agitation, he tossed and turned for at least an hour before falling asleep.

He found no peace in sleep.

Keith dreamed neither of his walks through the dark, nor of swirling storm clouds. He dreamed instead of an intense, searing heat, of light in every color he could possibly imagine, all of them far too bright and overwhelming. Even as they burned themselves into his eyes painfully, Keith found himself unable to look away from the brilliant array, for where in his dark world had Keith seen colors so vivid? Certainly humans found ways to illuminate the darkness, but this--this was unlike anything Keith had ever seen before. Indeed, it was also unlike anything he’d ever felt. The heat was unbearable, but also reminded Keith of every warm thing he’d ever had in his life: his father’s embrace, Shiro’s genuine smiles, the feeling of flying, and--and Lance?

Yes, confusing as it was, once he came to mind, Lance stubbornly stayed there, even in his sulky silence. He was just as vivid as everything else, perhaps even more so. He faced away from Keith, just as he had for the entire day. Even as Keith felt his frustration reach a fever pitch, he stepped closer to Lance, recoiling slightly as the heat intensified. He moved forward still in spite of his reluctance--he realized he couldn’t stop no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much it seemed as though he might burst into flames at any moment. It was a miracle he could still see anything, what with the fierce light now stabbing at his eyes like needles. Still he pressed ever forward towards Lance, who seemed to take no notice of Keith’s struggle.

And then, just as Keith reached out an unwilling hand towards Lance, he awoke with a start, drenched in sweat and weighed down by a lingering feeling of warmth, quite different from the heat that was blasting out of his vents and burning him alive. He looked at his clock and was quite frustrated to find that it was just a few minutes before his alarm would have gone off. Just as well, he thought, he definitely needed a thorough shower, what with the state he was in. When he trudged out of his room towards the bathroom, however, he found it already occupied.

Exasperated and feeling incredibly gross, Keith pounded on the door, only to receive a sing-song “Occupied!” from the other side.

“Hurry up!” Keith demanded.

Lance made no reply, but began singing some song or other, seemingly intent on trying the absolute limits of Keith’s patience. He paced like a caged lion in front of the bathroom door, checking the time frequently, finding it passing unreasonably quickly. More than once he reminded Lance to hurry it up, that he wasn’t the only one that required personal hygiene, to which Lance loudly replied that his good looks took time, and if Keith had wanted to take his own time, he should’ve gotten up earlier. Keith was dangerously close to breaking down the door and tossing Lance out, and was prevented mainly because he was not intent on explaining to his building manager why, exactly, the bathroom door had come flying off its hinges.

When Lance finally emerged, steam billowing out behind him, Keith barely had time for a quick rinse. It would have to do. Worse still, Lance had used up the precious little hot water there was. Keith didn’t mind the cold, especially after a night of being roasted alive, but taking an icy shower first thing in the morning? No fun, under any circumstances. He didn’t even have time to yell about it as they hurried out the door, as fast as Lance could manage. Why he bothered to go at Lance’s pace when every bit of him was itching to run ahead and not be late was beyond Keith, but like it or not he stayed resolutely by Lance’s side. It proved to be a good decision when Lance, rather than Keith, nearly succumbed to that ever growing patch of ice on the sidewalk. Keith reacted instinctively and grabbed him before he could hit the ground, regretting it an instant later when he recalled that distant memory of the time he’d received laughter, rather than help. He righted Lance quickly, receiving a mumbled thanks for his trouble, and continued on his way.

“Hey man,” Lance started in a soft voice. “I… Uhm, I’m sorry, about yesterday, and the night before. You’re being unfairly nice and--I don’t know, I guess I just feel like I owe you big time now, and I don’t know how could possibly pay you back, but, like that’s no excuse being a brat over having to sit outside for like an hour--”

“Lance.”

“And it’s like you said, I could’ve called or texted you too, and I don’t know why I didn’t, I guess I was just too busy being miserable, cause my ankle was sore from walking all day, and then I’m really sensitive to the cold--”

“Lance,” Keith repeated, a little more firmly this time.

Lance shut his mouth with a sharp clack, looking sheepish.

“I’m not doing this because I want to hold it over your head or anything. I just--I don’t know, you were stuck in a bad spot, and I knew that if someone offered me help in the same sort of position, even if I didn’t accept it, I’d really appreciate it…” Keith explained haltingly.

“Yeah, but if you were in the same spot and someone did offer something like that, would you accept that sort of help?” Lance asked seriously.

“I--” Keith started, before stopping sharply. Would he? There had been times in the past where he’d gotten so sick he could hardly move from his bed, and yet refused to let Shiro stay over to tend to him. His argument, however, had been that he didn’t want Shiro catching whatever he had, so it wasn’t quite the same. Still… “I don’t know,” he finally answered.

Lance hummed. “I think you’re too nice for your own good.”

Keith snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“No, seriously, I can’t figure you out,” Lance started. “On the one hand, you’re being really nice to me even though we hardly know each other, but on the other hand, you’re keeping me at arm’s length. I don’t get it.”

“I’m not--!”

“You are though,” Lance interrupted before Keith could say much. “Not saying it’s a bad thing, it’s just… confusing, is all.”

Keith was trying to think of the best way to tell Lance that he wasn’t exactly what he had seemed at first either, but then they entered the Bureau headquarters, and suddenly they had a much more important task at hand. They had only barely discussed how they would tell Shiro about the snatcher, and that had been Friday night. Now they only had a few minutes to hash out who would say what, and how best to convince Shiro that what they were telling him was one hundred percent true.

They were still in the midst of their whispered argument when they arrived in front of Shiro’s desk, much to Shiro’s amusement.

“What’s got you two so energetic this morning?” he asked.

“We have something to tell you!” Lance blurted before Keith could stop him.

Shiro’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t tell me you guys are dating now? You know normally people date first, and then live together--”

“No!” Keith snapped, a little too loudly, garnering the attention of other workers. Lowering his voice, he hissed, “We’re serious, this is important, and we need you to listen to us.”

His tone must’ve been grave, for Shiro’s expression changed in an instant. He ushered them both to an area with less people, urging them to be quick about it. Their story, for all their rushed planning, spilled out in a mess. Shiro had to ask for certain details to be repeated and clarified several times, and by the time they’d finished telling him everything they knew, he looked thoughtful, and not entirely doubtful.

“The lightning thing seems a little far fetched,” he started slowly. Before Lance and Keith could protest, he continued, “But the fact that this snatcher is not only in pursuit of the sun, but seems to have an idea of where it might be is concerning, to say the least. I’ll write up a report, but be prepared to answer a lot of the same questions over and over again if they decide to take it seriously.”

That done, Shiro banished them to the analyst’s department, where Hunk set them both to drawing up maps for replacers. Lance was less than enthused.

“Come on, man, can’t we do something interesting, like sorting stars or something?” Lance groaned, even as he sat on one side of the tiny desk given to them.

“Lance, I told you last time, sorting stars isn’t nearly as easy as you think, not to mention you have to have a special certification to handle stars so often during the day, I could go on and on about people who’ve accidentally made wishes while working--” Hunk began to ramble, bringing over log books and blank sheets and all manner of measuring tools.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve got to have a certain mindset and all that mature mumbo-jumbo,” Lance said dismissively, waving a lazy hand. “Isn’t there something else we can do?”

Hunk gave him a sympathetic smile. “‘Fraid not, bud. You guys are stuck with this for a while.”

Lance wailed dramatically, slouching low in his chair, while Hunk gave Keith a brief rundown of the process. It felt lengthy, stretching on and on while Lance reluctantly started on a map (“So first you have to draw the lines--” “Why weren’t they printed with lines?” “Printer ink is expensive.” “And pen ink isn’t?”), but by the time Hunk had finished explaining everything, only ten minutes had passed. Lance must’ve noticed Keith’s alarmed glance towards the clock, and grinned cheekily.

“Welcome to limbo,” he told Keith. “Time isn’t real here.”

And indeed, time seemed to travel in fits and starts, in one instant creeping along at a snail’s pace, in another leaping ahead like a wild hare. By the time lunch rolled around, Keith was exhausted by the sheer unpredictable nature of the clock. More than once he’d checked his own watch, thinking that perhaps somehow the clock in the analyst’s office was broken, but to his dismay, it always matched the time on the clock. He was more than eager to get out of there, and hoped that Lance’s ankle healed faster than it was supposed to, if only for the sake of getting back to a job that didn’t require sitting at a desk for hours on end.

“Alright, time for lunch!” Hunk exclaimed joyfully as he put away the stars he’d been sorting away. “You guys want to come along with me and Pidge? Today was her first day in the solar department, I’m sure she wants to tell us all about it.”

Lance was more than happy to join them, but Keith, for all that he actually did want to hear about what things were like in the solar task force, had to decline.

“Oh, that’s right, you have that follow up appointment, don’t you?” Hunk asked.

“Appointment? What appointment?” Lance questioned.

“Just a check up to make sure my head’s alright,” Keith assured him. “But I probably won’t be back for the rest of the day.”

Lance squawked at that. “You’re abandoning me!”

“Yep,” Keith confirmed with a pop, trying not to laugh at Lance’s dramatic reaction.

“I can’t believe this--you, you’ve betrayed me, I don’t know if I can ever trust you again!” Lance exclaimed with a flourish.

“That you trusted me in the first place was a mistake on your part,” Keith told him with a crooked grin. “See you later.”

The appointment was uneventful, but beared good news: Keith was as fit as a fiddle, with no indication that he’d had a concussion in the first place. Even so, the doctor advised him to continue to take it easy for the next week, but otherwise he was in good shape to return to his normal work. He couldn’t until Lance was fully healed, of course, but it felt good to hear. That done, he returned to his apartment, relishing in the few hours he would have to himself before Lance was done with work.

He thought maybe he might take a nap, but then got a text. For some reason he thought it might be Lance, but instead it was Shiro.

“Hey, sorry if my joke earlier made you guys uncomfortable,” Shiro’s text read.

Keith scowled. Right. That was a thing that had happened.

“I thought you were done with that?”

“I know, I know, but you guys seriously looked like you were going to tell me you were dating, all nervous and fidgety--not to mention you guys are staying together for a few weeks, can you blame me?” Shiro asked.

“I can, and I will,” Keith replied.

“Seriously though, are you telling me you haven’t even considered it?” Shiro inquired, like the nosy older brother type person he was.

Keith scowled, even though Shiro wasn’t there to see it. “Aren’t you supposed to be working right now?”

“I’m on a break,” Shiro said. “So tell me, what’s the deal with you two?”

“There is no deal!” Keith texted back furiously, tapping the screen far harder than was necessary.

“You sure? Lance didn’t seem too opposed to the idea…”

“Haven’t I told you that he has a girlfriend? Even if I did think of him that way--WHICH I DON’T--I would never get in the middle of that. I’m not that sort of person,” Keith insisted.

“What makes you so certain that they’re dating?” came Shiro’s bizarre question.

“Trust me, if you saw them, you’d know. Besides, they went on a date to the sunflower fields this last weekend. They’re dating,” Keith typed, his frown deepening with every word.

“Huh, that’s weird.” Shiro’s texts were becoming more and more incomprehensible as the conversation went on, it seemed. Keith was tempted just to ignore it, knowing that Shiro was probably trying to bait him into continuing. 

Unfortunately, Shiro knew him too well, and Keith found himself asking, “Okay, I’ll bite: What’s weird?”

“Well, when I asked Lance what he did this weekend, he said he went to the sunflower fields by himself. I’m sure it’s nothing--maybe Allura had to cancel on him last minute?”

To Keith, this made perfect sense--after all, Lance had been in a particularly bad mood when he’d returned that day, although at the time Keith had only attributed it to the fact that Lance had waited who knew how long for Keith to return. Still, it would explain why he’d been so reluctant to talk about his date, when normally he jumped at the opportunity to talk about Allura.

“Probably. He’d been in a bad mood when he got back from it. Now can we drop this, please? For good this time?”

“No promises.”

Keith wanted to throw his phone. He loved Shiro, he really did, but he was, ultimately, an older brother. He would gnaw at this bone until Keith lost his absolute mind over it, and then some. Infuriating as it was, Keith trusted that Shiro wouldn’t take it too far, though this was definitely pushing the line.

He was still thinking about the conversation when Lance arrived a couple hours later, griping loudly about how Keith had left him to languish in the place that time had abandoned. Keith snorted, and briefly considered asking Lance about the supposed date he’d gone on, but then decided against it. If Lance was, by chance, still upset about it, he didn’t want to bring it up unnecessarily. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t the first time Allura had canceled on him like this…

The next couple of weeks were like walking a tightrope. One day he and Lance would get along fine, such that Keith thought that maybe this time, surely, they could finally be friends. But then Lance would do something or Keith would say something and it would blow up in their faces so spectacularly that more than once Keith’s neighbors had come knocking, asking them to keep it down. Embarrassed but undeterred, they would usually continue to argue about their problem of the day in hissed whispers, making it sound like there was a gas leak in Keith’s apartment. And then, sometimes as soon as the next day, other times several days later, they would apologize to each other. It was tumultuous and exhausting, and Keith wished there was something he could do to break the cycle. 

What made it worse was that same problems seemed to be coming up over and over again--Lance constantly snapped at Keith anytime tried to help him with his injured ankle (even after the doctor said he could lose the crutch, although it was recommended, Keith reminded him more than once, that he continue to use it), to which Keith always insisted he was just trying to be helpful and why wouldn’t Lance just let him be? 

And speaking of letting him be, Lance always seemed to know exactly when Keith most wanted to be alone--and insisted on not allowing that to happen. It drove Keith to his wit’s end more than once. On the one hand, sure, he wouldn’t mind getting to know Lance a little better. There were even times where Keith was acutely aware of just how drawn in he was by Lance. On the other hand, however, he needed some space! But every time he tried telling Lance that, he’d accuse Keith of pushing him away, shutting him out--as if that was a big deal for two people who had only known each other for hardly a month! Not to mention, Keith pointed out, Lance himself had said it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but of course Lance denied ever having said such a thing.

They always managed to resolve things, however temporarily, if only by virtue of having to live and work together. Keith wondered how things would change once Lance had to return home. He tried not to think about it too much.

Meanwhile, in between their frequent spats, they kept up with the news, looking for any and all reports of unusual weather patterns (not just lightning, they decided, in case Terrell had any allies similar to herself). Just as Shiro had warned them would happen, they were indeed pulled away from their work for questioning, although Keith found that the questions seemed to take them a lot more seriously than he’d expected.

“What was the snatcher’s name?” they asked, though it had been included in the report. “What did she look like? What was she doing? You said she has an idea of where the sun is? Who else was there?”

Keith hardly knew how to answer them, especially as the questions became more and more irritating and repetitive (“You’re sure there was no one else there?” “There could’ve been, we just didn’t see anyone else.”), but eventually they seemed to run out of questions, convinced that they had wrangled all the information they were going to get out of Keith. Lance revealed that his experience had been much the same. Keith found it odd that they took them so seriously, even the part where they revealed they suspected that the snatcher somehow had command over lightning, but Lance thought he was being, as usual, far too cynical. 

That aside, a few more lone lightning strikes followed by raging wildfires occurred in the surrounding area, about one a week, imparting both Keith and Lance with a deep sense of concern. How was this at all productive? From what Terrell had been saying, it seemed as though she were trying to bait someone out of hiding, someone who might potentially have the sun… but surely no one would be foolish enough to fall for so obvious a trap? Then, about a month after their first encounter with Terrell, there was silence for an entire two weeks.

The timing, in Keith’s opinion, was terrible. He felt anxious enough with the apparent lack of activity from Terrell when she had seemed so determined (“She probably just packed up and decided to hit up a different area,” Lance assured him.), but now, Lance had decided of his own volition that it was time for him to leave, in spite of his ankle not being completely healed yet.

“Keith, I get your concern and all, I appreciate it, I really do, but I’m not going to get back to a hundred percent if I keep getting coddled,” Lance explained when Keith suggested he could stay a bit longer.

“And I’m just saying that we had agreed that you could stay until you were fully healed, which you’re clearly not,” Keith argued.

“It’s not that bad! And at least I don’t have to walk with the crutch anymore!” Lance pointed out.

“You said your doctor recommended you still use it,” Keith said for what felt like the billionth time.

“A recommendation isn’t an order--I’m fine without it, and I’ll be better once I get a chance to flex my ankle a bit more. Physical therapist said so,” Lance huffed, shoving some clothes into his bag perhaps a tad more aggressively that usual.

Keith could sense another argument coming, all the tells were there, and yet something was telling him that if Lance would just listen to him, for once, then he might see that Keith just has his best interests at heart. Or perhaps it was his competitive drive telling him that this was not something he should lose, especially not to Lance. Or, a traitorous part of his mind whispered, the part that sounded a bit too much like Shiro, maybe, after all this time of counting down the days until he had his apartment to himself again, Keith wanted Lance to stay… Keith hushed it as quickly as he did Shiro.

Ultimately, he didn’t pursue the argument. If Lance complained about his ankle hurting even more after walking all the way from his own home, Keith wasn’t going to listen. He was just about to shut himself away in his room again, when Lance, who was clearly intent on having an argument, stopped him.

“What’s your problem?” he demanded.

“I don’t have a problem,” Keith insisted.

“Clearly,” Lance retorted. “You’re just walking away again, refusing to talk about whatever is bothering you.”

“Why does it matter?” Keith snapped.

“What do you mean, ‘why does it matter’?! We’ve talked about this several times by now--”

“I can push you away if I want,” Keith interrupted.

“But at the same time you want to keep my within arm’s reach! It’s like you want to keep me here in this tiny apartment where you can keep an eye on me, but not interact with me!” Lance shouted.

“I--that’s not true!” Keith protested.

“Sure it isn’t,” Lance scoffed, returning to his packing.

By then, Keith was fuming. “What about you, huh? You keep acting like this is such a problem, but every time I try to be a bit nicer, you act like I’m treating you like you’re pathetic!”

“Because you do!” Lance snarled.

“I do not!”

“Do so!”

“So, what, the nice things I do just aren’t good enough for you?!” Keith shouted.

“Gee, Keith, I thought you said it doesn’t matter,” Lance replied brusquely.

Keith couldn’t even articulate anything at that, growling incoherently and trying very hard not to lose his temper completely. Around them, the lights flickered ever so slightly. “You’re impossible! I don’t know why I even bother!”

“Then don’t bother, Keith!” Lance yelled, hoisting his bag over his shoulder and striding to the door. “I don’t need you nannying me. Thanks for letting me stay here, but I think this time had made it very clear that we just don’t work!”

“Speaking of work, I guess I’ll look for a different partner then!” Keith threatened.

“Go ahead, see what I care! It’ll be a relief to get a break from your stupid face and your stupid hair!” Lance shouted before making a swift and loud exit.

In the sudden silence, Keith’s full attention went to the flickering lights. No doubt it had irritated him even further without his realizing. He stomped over to the light switch with a fresh surge of vexation, but before he could even raise a hand, the lights fizzed out on their own, plunging him into a lonely, overwhelming darkness. The blood was still roaring in Keith’s ears, making him feel unusually hot and setting his eyes to ache. With a huff, Keith didn’t even bother to find out why the lights had gone out. He stumbled towards his bedroom and fell into bed, insides roiling as he, increasingly, felt like perhaps the cycle between them had been broken in the worst possible way.

He considered, briefly, texting Lance an apology before too long had passed, but felt like that might be a little pathetic. Besides, maybe this was for the best. He himself had acknowledged that there had been a cycle of good and bad times between them--perhaps it was just better than they stayed apart.

And yet there was that part of Keith that was inexplicably drawn to Lance. It wasn’t at all romantic, of that Keith was certain--or at least, he thought he was certain. Shiro seemed to think otherwise, but if things were always like this between them, then wouldn’t it be better for both of them if it weren’t? Keith’s mind felt a muddied mess, going back and forth between the fact that he and Lance always seemed to barge right past each others’ boundaries and the fact that, in spite of his earlier threat, there was no way, at this point, he could bring himself to ask for a different partner.

Certainly, Lance was over the top and aggravating more often than not, but Keith had to admit, it was a far more colorful way to live than the humdrum way he’d been trudging through his life prior to Lance. It sounded ten kinds of cheesy, but even arguments with Lance were exciting sometimes. That was, of course, before one of them said or did something that went too far, prompting the other to retaliate in kind. If, perhaps, they could work on not doing that, then maybe, just maybe, they could be more…

Fervent as his thoughts were, Keith did not remember much of what he’d been thinking the next morning. He felt more exhausted than normal, his throat sore and scratchy. He hoped he wasn’t catching a cold, now of all times. His apartment seemed darker and colder--his lights were working again, and he finally didn’t have to keep the heat cranked up for Lance’s sake. It seemed roomier too, for all that it was a small space. Keith tried to tell himself it was nice to have it all to himself again, but apparently he’d gotten too used to having someone around. He considered briefly that maybe it would be nice to have a dog.

He moved sluggishly that morning, not having to rush anymore now that Lance wasn’t around to hog the bathroom. In taking his time, he happened to check his phone, on which it seemed he had received a message in the middle of the night--from Lance. Keith debated reading the message, but knew that he’d been thinking about it all day if he didn’t. He tapped on the notification, anxious as to what it might say.

The message was disappointingly short.

“We need to talk,” was all it said.

Keith scowled. He was torn between saying that much was obvious, or saying that he’d rather not, that perhaps it was best they just didn’t talk or work with each other anymore. In the end, Keith didn’t say anything. After all, he and Lance would inevitably be seeing each other at work, even if Lance did what Keith was so reluctant to do and request a new partner. Keith wasn’t entirely sure he even wanted to talk (there was the chance it could just devolve into another argument), but there was no denying that tug in his gut when he thought of Lance, not entirely unlike the feeling he got if he gazed for just too long into the unending darkness of the sky. Not exactly the same, but not completely dissimilar either.

He shook it from his head on his way to work, trying to steel himself for whatever Lance might have to say to him. He hoped that maybe it could go well, and that they could move along to being proper friends. He tried to think of what he might say--that he didn’t intend to coddle Lance while also pushing him away? And that he didn’t even intend to push him away in the first place, that it took time for Keith to truly open up to people? He’d known Shiro for a year before he felt like they were even friends, but once he’d gotten there it had been all too easy to start considering Shiro one of, if not the most important person in his life…

His heart kicked it up a gear when the Bureau headquarters were within sight. Would he run into Lance (perhaps literally, as they’d done before?) on the way in? Or was Lance already inside? Or maybe he would be late, Keith considered. The one thing he didn’t consider, as he trudged through the building as though expecting Lance to jump out from around any corner, was to get to the searcher’s office and have Shiro tell him that Lance wasn’t coming in today.

“Said he wasn’t feeling well,” Shiro explained. “Did something--”

“No,” Keith said abruptly. “Am I still working in the analyst’s department today?”

Shiro nodded, still clearly concerned, but before he could say anything more, Keith walked away. No doubt he’d be hearing from Shiro later, but right now his thoughts had kicked up into a veritable maelstrom of a mess.

So Lance says he wants to talk, but then doesn’t show up to work? More to the point, Keith thought furiously, if he’d been so upset with the way Keith was acting, why did he bother staying? He could’ve very well left at any time--but then, hadn’t he accused Keith of trying to keep him there? Not that Keith had been trying to do that… in his truly honest opinion. Keith was trying to be nice--to someone he realized he didn’t even consider a friend yet. Certainly living and working together meant he knew Lance better than he might’ve under normal circumstances, but that didn’t explain what his deal was regarding Lance in the first place…

Keith took a deep breath as he plopped down at the desk that he’d been sharing with Lance for the last month.

First things first, he told himself, he didn’t like Lance romantically. That much he knew for certain (or told himself he did, anyways), in spite of Shiro’s numerous suggestions. Lance simply had a certain charisma, and Keith knew he was hardly the first person to be drawn in by it. He’d seen it over the course of the last few weeks--people initially put off by Lance’s self-aggrandizing and dramatic behavior were inexplicably helpless against his warmth and charm. Keith knew that Lance was, truly, a good person, but he had yet to see anyone not stick around long enough to see it. Even he had tried to step away and gain distance between himself and Lance, but had been, quite against his will, drawn in all the same.

Secondly, he continued, quite ignoring the work before him, he thought that perhaps he could come to enjoy Lance’s company--as a friend. There was no doubt in his mind that anything more would not work out well for either of them, as last night’s argument had clearly demonstrated, but perhaps friendship was possible… if Keith could be certain that it was out of a genuine will of his own to know Lance better, rather than that strange pull that Lance exuded reeling him in against his will. Although, Keith supposed, if he was going to get pulled in anyways, he may as well make the most of it, right?

That was, if Lance even wanted to be his friend after this, Keith remembered with a deep sigh. For all he knew, all Lance wanted to say to him was that they should stay as far away from each other as humanly possible. If that was the case, Keith would rather he just do it over text. Less likely for things to turn into an argument over text, Keith thought.

“Hey, are you doing alright? You’ve been doing nothing but staring at the maps for, like, the last hour,” Hunk commented, pulling Keith from his thoughts.

“It’s been an hour?!” Keith said, head whipping around to check the clock. It was as Hunk had said--he’d been sitting there, deep in thought, for the last hour. Of all times for time to pass quickly…

“But seriously, you look tired. You aren’t getting sick, are you?” Hunk asked, sitting in Lance’s usual spot.

Keith thought of the dull ache that had been throbbing behind his eyes ever since he woke up. He shrugged. “Who knows. I hope not.”

Hunk was silent for a moment as he opened the log book Lance had been making his way through over the course of the last few weeks. Keith rolled out a blank map paper (he’d once taken an entire day to just draw the gridlines precisely on as many sheets of paper as he could), and opened his own log book.

“Look, I know we’re not all that close, but, if there’s something bothering you, you can talk to me about it, if you want,” Hunk offered, rolling out his own map sheet.

Keith didn’t immediately reply. He had long thought that Hunk and Lance were similar in some respects, mostly in that they both had that unusual charisma that drew people to them, but where with Lance it was baffling at the very least, Hunk was amiable and kind, leaving no question as to why people were drawn to him. To put it succinctly, Hunk was far less overwhelming than Lance (and, Keith thought, that didn’t even begin to describe how overwhelming Lance could be sometimes).

“I don’t know if I want to talk about it,” Keith finally said.

“That’s cool,” Hunk said easily. “But if you ever do want to talk about it, my ears are open.”

Keith wasn’t sure why, but something in him, something that must’ve been dangerously thin and frayed already, snapped.

“See?! How easy is it to just let people be?! It’s not a big deal to just leave people alone until they’re ready to let you in, but no! He has to have his way and strong-arm his way in, otherwise you’re pushing him away, even though you’d like to be his friend but you just have a particular way of making friends--!”

“Okay, I’m not going to lie, you’ve completely lost me,” Hunk said the instant Keith paused to take a breath. “Is this about Lance?”

Keith huffed, letting his head drop to the desk. “Maybe…”

Hunk hummed thoughtfully. “Honestly, I’m not surprised.”

Keith turned his head to look at Hunk, chin resting against the desk. “Why do you say that?”

“Like--you guys are so different, and it’s like you want to be friends, but neither of you know how to talk to each other. It’s like you’re standing on opposite sides of this big canyon and yelling at each other, and sometimes you hear what the other is saying, but a lot of the time you don’t, and you get angry because of what you think the other is saying, and it just turns into a mess,” Hunk explained. “You guys just need to build a bridge and meet each other in the middle.”

Keith took a few moments to turn over Hunk’s words in his head. They made sense, certainly, but in order to build a bridge, they needed materials to work with. Keith, for all that he’d spent the last six weeks in close proximity with Lance, felt like he had nothing to work with.

“Thanks, Hunk,” Keith said in a quiet voice, in spite of the fact that he was very certain that very little could be built between himself and Lance now.

“No problem dude,” Hunk replied.

That done, Keith decided that it was time to set aside his melancholy and (finally) start working. Just as he put the pen to paper, however, the lights above flickered. It wasn’t entirely unusual, given that the world relied solely on electricity to light up the darkness, but Keith was immediately annoyed by it. Was the entire city having electrical problems or something? First his apartment, and now work? Unlike the night before in his apartment, however, the lights here buzzed with the effort to stay alight. And then, without warning, the lights got brighter and brighter, humming dangerously, and Keith and Hunk both realized what was happening only a second before the lights overhead shattered, raining glass on everyone in the office.

While Hunk called for everyone to remain calm, making sure that no one had been seriously hurt, Keith peered through the sudden darkness, his senses buzzing. Perhaps it wasn’t all that out of the ordinary for the power to go out every once in a while, but this was something Keith had never experienced. It didn’t sit right with him. 

For the first few moments, however, it seemed like his paranoia was misplaced. Nothing happened but for the agitated shuffling of everyone around, and Hunk’s soothing assurances that everything was fine. Several people pulled out their phones, trying to diligently continue their work one handed. The stars scattered across the various desks dotted the darkness, stirring something almost familiar deep within Keith.

Before he could consider it too deeply though, the building rumbled ominously, and outside was the unmistakable sound of thunder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed! Like I said, a lot less action than usual, at least in the typical sense, mostly just a lot of talking and introspection. Perhaps I didn't need an entire chapter's worth of it but here we are. If you feel like keeping up with updates regarding this story (or pestering me for previews), follow me @stories-in-the-stars on tumblr, or, if you can't find me there, find my main blog @creeshtar. See y'all next week!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I’m changing my update schedule! Which means you guys get this chapter a little earlier! I hope y’all enjoy! Thanks so far to the people who have been reading and supporting me, y’all give me life.
> 
> As always, if you see typos or sentences that don’t make sense, please point them out to me, I would super appreciate it.

“Everybody get down!” Keith shouted over the renewed panic.

No sooner had he yelled that than a terrifying explosion was heard far too close, screams following shortly behind it. Everything rattled and threatened to fall apart, prompting everyone to take cover under their desks. There was no doubt in Keith’s mind as to what was happening, but what baffled him was why. Certainly after all this time Terrell hadn’t only just realized that with such power at her command she could bring the entire building worth of people to their knees without breaking a sweat? But then, if she cared about that, why hadn’t she done it before? Was she more careful than her wildfire spree indicated? Or was she just flat out an agent of chaos, whimsical and unpredictable and determined to do what she wanted, when she wanted?

Keith couldn’t even begin to answer those questions whirling in his head, not if he stayed ducked under a desk.

When the explosion went off, everyone had turned off their flashlights and swept away as many stars as they could out of sight, and everything was now deathly quiet. Keith kept low as emerged from under his desk. Squinting through the darkness, he could almost see everything in the office, if only vague forms that he was certain he was just recalling from memory. Careful but quick, Keith weaved through the desks and people towards the chaos outside the office. He opened the door without a sound, and peered into the darkened halls--if it was Terrell (and Keith was certain it was), then it seemed she had thought to take out the emergency power as well. Not a single light was shining as far as Keith could see.

Closing the door behind him, Keith ghosted down the hallway towards the sound of the chaos. All Bureau employees had some level of self-defense training, particularly field workers, but nothing could possibly prepare them for an invasion of their headquarters. It was unheard of! Certainly, in the past attempts had been made, but never before had such intrusions been successful.

Several times people nearly ran into Keith as they stumbled away from the chaos. As Keith weaved seamlessly through the darkness, following the shouting and occasional snap of an arc of electricity, he realized that the chaos was centered around the searcher’s department. He doubled his pace, now running without thought that he might trip over something. Why Terrell and her snatchers would target the searcher’s department rather than the analysts’ (where all the stars were kept) was a mystery to Keith, but given how effectively the building had been disabled, he was reluctant to say that it was a mistake on her part.

It was only a distant thought. Suddenly he couldn’t care less about why Terrell was here or what her real goal was. The only thing on his mind was that Shiro was in the searcher’s department, where a criminal with power over lightning was doing who knew what. He trusted Shiro to take care of himself (most of the time), but this was beyond either of them. Keith only hoped that Shiro hadn’t done anything too reckless by the time he got there (as if he was one to talk).

He could only barely see it, but the main hall had a swath cut right down the middle of it, a veritable path of destruction leading right to the searcher’s department. Keith hurried to follow it, very nearly tripping over someone much shorter than him. The person managed to run right into Keith, however, with such force that they both fell to the ground.

“Hey! Watch it!”

“Pidge?!” Keith asked, suddenly picking out Pidge’s distinct features through the darkness, her eyes glinting furiously.

“Keith! What’s going on?!” she demanded.

Keith hauled her to her feet, continuing on his way towards the searcher’s department, where things had become mysteriously (dangerously) quiet. Pidge followed without hesitation, and Keith didn’t try to stop her. He had a feeling she wouldn’t listen if he told her to turn back anyways.

“Remember that snatcher that Lance and I ran into a while back?” Keith whispered.

“Why would she want to break in?” Pidge asked.

“No idea, but she’s dangerous and so far unpredictable,” Keith said as they approached what should’ve been the door to the searcher’s department, but was now a gaping hole in the wall. 

Keith dragged Pidge to cover as though she were a ragdoll, to which she protested with a string of whispers that sounded like the hiss of a gas leak, threatening catastrophe at any moment. From where they hid, they peered into the department, where several people were roaming around with flashlights. Were it not for the people frozen with dread, Keith might’ve thought that the danger was passed. But every once in a while, one of the people with a flashlight would haul a Bureau worker towards the middle of the room, where a stationary figure would regard them carefully, and then slowly shake their head, upon which the worker would be shoved away, allowed to cower behind a desk once more.

Keith relayed what was happening to Pidge, who couldn’t see much of anything that wasn’t directly illuminated by a flashlight.

“Why isn’t anyone doing anything?” she asked.

“Because Terrell can control lightning,” Keith told her, trying to formulate a plan.

“What?!”

Keith shushed her, hoping no one heard. If they could maintain the element of surprise, they might just be able to pull something off. He wasn’t sure just what yet, but something.

He had been deliberating quietly with Pidge when, naturally, something happened that threw all of their half-constructed plans out the window. In the beam of a flashlight, Keith spotted Shiro, crouching in front of several other workers and looking as though he too was searching for a way out of this situation. One of Terrell’s snatchers gestured to him, and Shiro slowly stood. Despite Shiro’s cooperation, the snatcher still thought fit to grab his arm and force him towards Terrell. Keith didn’t know he’d been gripping Pidge’s shoulder far too tightly until she complained about it.

He muttered a quick apology, eyes still trained on Shiro, who Terrell was now appraising Shiro a though he were some sort of valuable object. At the very least, it looked to Keith as though she didn’t intend to turn him away as immediately as she had the others, and regardless of what was actually happening, Keith didn’t like what he saw one bit.

He was already moving past Pidge, halfway through the room and ready to tackle Terrell as she said, “Not quite what I was looking for, but very interesting, to say the least--”

Several things happened then, all in very rapid succession. Shiro wrenched his arm from the snatcher behind him, and neatly elbowed them in the face so hard that they stumbled backwards onto the ground. Terrell reacted just as quickly, electricity sparking to life in the palms of her hands as Shiro made to attack her as well. Keith, as yet unnoticed, came in low and tackled Terrell, slamming her into the ground with such force that he could hear the air whooshing out of her lungs. The lightning in her hands flew out haphazardly, striking the ceiling and raining debris on the onlookers. Around him, her lackeys closed in quickly, only to be held back by the Bureau workers who’d been waiting for the right opportunity. With Terrell neutralized, they had nothing to fear from the snatchers.

She didn’t stay down for long.

“Well,” she coughed. “This explains some things.”

And before Keith could even try to get her to explain what in the world she meant, she twisted a wrist out of his grip and slammed her open palm into his chest, the force of electricity sending him flying. He curled in on himself where he landed, everything feeling tight and loose at the same time and incredibly, uncomfortably twitchy. As he pushed himself up as quickly as he could, he saw Terrell already standing and assessing the situation, arcs of lightning jumping dangerously between her hands. Before she could do anything with it, she was tackled once again, this time by Pidge.

“Another one?!” Terrell roared as she tried to fight off Pidge.

But Pidge, for all that she was small in stature, was quick and agile. It was difficult even for Terrell and her literal lightning reflexes to pin her down. Everyone took cover as Terrell missed Pidge again and again, sending bolts of lightning jumping throughout the room without thought or care for whatever, or whoever, might be in the way. Several times Keith saw Terrell’s own people get struck by her lightning. Pidge didn’t hit very hard, but her hits were precise and frequent. Keith thought, as he watched Terrell get pushed back, that Pidge might be able to take her down.

Terrell, it seemed, lost her patience with the tussle. Keith realized what she was going to do a moment before it happened, and darted towards Pidge to try and get her out of the way. Terrell’s hands glowed white hot, and the last thing Keith saw as he reached to grab Pidge was her clapping her hands together, transforming the inky dark to a blinding white light. The only thing that remained that Keith could see was stark shadows, cast by the overwhelming brightness, a light that held no warmth.

There was no sound, save for a distant ringing. All Keith knew was that Pidge was in his arms, and they were far too close to the lightning for safety. All he could think was that if they were in those shadows—the shadows meant cover, safety. If he could just get them there within the next fraction of a second—

Then, all of Keith’s senses exploded. Something heavy and hard hit his back, while he and Pidge tumbled forward aimlessly. An incoherent roaring replaced the ringing, drowning out even the sound of his own voice. Keith couldn’t even tell whether his eyes were closed or not, so bright was the lightning.

Just as suddenly as it all started, it stopped, and everything was dark once more. Keith’s hearing returned to him slowly, as he and Pidge helped each other to their feet. At first, all he heard were alarmed murmurs, nearly drowned out by insistent ringing. His vision was spotty, rusty reds and dusty blues dotting the blackness. He thought he heard Shiro nearby, and he looked around to find him, to see if he was okay.

After a moment of fumbling, the emergency lights flickered to life. A gaping hole, crumbling and smoldering, was left in the ceiling, allowing the cold to rush in. Terrell, and all of her snatchers, were nowhere to be found.

“Keith, Pidge,” Shiro coughed, ambling over to them. “Are you two alright?”

“Yeah—“ Pidge replied. “I—how did we manage to get all the way over here?”

Looking down around him, Keith realized they were far from the center of the room, where he had been certain Terrell and Pidge had been fighting. It had definitely been his aim to get as far away from Terrell as possible before her lightning struck, but to have gotten this far…

“We must’ve gotten thrown by the force of the impact,” Keith decided.

“Yeah…” Pidge slowly agreed, sounding a little dazed.

“Come on, you guys should sit down,” Shiro urged.

“What about you? Are you alright? What did she even want with you?” Keith asked, all in a single breath.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Shiro assured him. “As for what she wanted with me, I’m not so sure myself. It sounded like she was looking for something, or someone… Either way, I’m thinking she’s a lot more dangerous than we initially thought, especially since she’s made it crystal clear that she can, almost single-handedly, bring us to our knees whenever she wants.”

“That’s definitely not what this was about though,” Pidge said.

Shiro shook his head. “No, but until we know her actual motives, that’s probably what the public will perceive.”

Work in the Bureau screeched to a standstill as everyone tried to regain some sense of order amongst all the debris. Keith, for all that Shiro told him to take it easy, immediately went back to the analysts’ office to make sure everyone was alright. Hunk had managed to keep everyone reasonably calm, even, as Keith learned, when a few stray searchers invaded and made wild grabs for stars. All the stars had been secured beforehand, so there was very little for the searchers to do except turn tail and run when they found themselves horribly outnumbered. Even so, Hunk had set everyone to verifying that all stars, were accounted for. It was tedious, what with the hundreds of stars they had in storage, but no one dared to question Hunk’s tone.

“What happened?” Hunk asked as soon as he’d finished telling Keith everything that had happened in the analyst’s department, counting stars with startling efficiency while he listened to Keith.

Keith told him all about Terrell’s seemingly pointless invasion, how she seemed to be looking for something, but took an interest in Shiro, never quite elaborating on why. He also mentioned what she’d said towards himself and Pidge, and how it completely baffled him.

“Huh, that’s weird,” Hunk commented, sliding a fully counted drawer of stars to the stars and dumping out another one to count. “No offense, but what makes you guys so special?”

“You’re asking the wrong guy,” Keith sighed. “If I could just get my hands on her and shake the answers out of her—“

“Maybe don’t do that,” Hunk suggested.

“I know, I know. But I just—we know she’s after the sun, right? But it also looks like she’s after something else, because we definitely don’t have the sun, so what in the world was she doing here?”

Hunk hummed. “You don’t think someone here at the Bureau has it, do you?”

“Maybe,” Keith said. It was certainly in line with his own brand of cynical thinking. “If she had someone on the inside of the Bureau, it might explain why she’s never been caught.”

“Maybe you should tell someone in the keeper’s department?” Hunk suggested.

“I don’t know, there’s a chance that her insider, if there is one, is more likely a keeper,” Keith replied.

“Then why was she in the searcher’s department?”

Again, Keith had no idea. When he returned to the searcher’s department, he insisted that Shiro give him something to do to help quiet the swirling storm of thoughts in his head. It came as no surprise that Keith was assigned to help sweep up debris, as that was the biggest concern. Even outside the searcher’s department, the chill had seeped into all the corners of the Bureau building. Keith didn’t mind, but everyone around him complained loudly of it. Normally people whining about the cold, when it was the norm, would annoy Keith to no end, but at present he was far too busy going in circles in his mind.

Terrell might have an insider who knew about the sun. But that was a very abstract possibility. But then, why would she have come to the Bureau now, of all times? Unless her lightning powers were new? That would certainly explain her unpredictable behavior, and the fact that she’d only come to make herself known lately, but she also had a measure of control over her power that suggested it wasn’t entirely new to her. Was this something that had been a long time coming then?

By the end of the day, which lasted longer than most given the mayhem, the head supervisor of the searcher’s department informed them that they would still be expected to report to work as usual the next day, in spite of the extra time they’d put in today. It was of utmost importance that they recover from this sooner rather than later, after all. Most of the grumbling was allayed as soon as it was promised they would be paid overtime.

Keith trudged home with a worse headache than he’d gone to work with. His eyes ached horribly, and his back felt bruised from the debris that had hit him earlier, the pain making itself known now that the adrenaline had faded and left him feeling drained and exhausted. He only wished that his mind would grant him at least a few moments of peace.

Idly he pulled out his allotted wish as he slumped onto his couch. He knew there was no use in simply wishing for the answers, or even to be able to stop thinking about everything for just a few moments—wishes didn’t work like that. If only. He set the flask gingerly down on the coffee table. Sometimes he thought about giving it back to the Bureau, feeling it might be better off being put back in the sky. Keith was of the opinion that wishes should only be used for things that were beyond his control. Too often, however, things out of his control were also out of the control of wishes as well. In Keith’s mind, it defeated the purpose of being able to make wishes at all. Certainly he was more impatient than most, but a wish was such a valuable thing—not something he wanted to squander on something that he could, sooner or later, achieve on his own.

Keith was just about to try to lie down and attempt sleep (which would likely result in him tossing and turning for hours while his mind stubbornly wrangled those insistent questions) when someone started pounding insistently at his door. Keith eyed the door suspiciously. Shiro would’ve walked right in, and anyone else would’ve told him they were coming which… Not very many people visited Keith in the first place.

Immediately, Keith was suspicious.

He approached the door without a sound, and peered cautiously through the peephole. He practically gasped aloud and scrambled to open the door when he saw who it was.

“Keith!” Lance gasped breathlessly. “I heard what happened at the Bureau, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I—what are you doing here?” Keith asked incredulously.

Lance frowned. “I just said.”

“You could’ve texted me,” Keith pointed out.

“You know what, forget it—“ Lance huffed, starting to walk away.

“Lance wait!” Keith said reflexively. “I—you said you wanted to talk, earlier?”

Lance paused, looking contemplative. Sighing deeply, he turned back towards Keith. “Yeah. I think we need to talk. No point in putting it off.”

Keith invited him in, and for a moment, things were tense, suspended within a breath of time. Keith found himself wishing that he had a clock that ticked, if only to break up the heavy silence that settled itself over them like a heavy, heated blanket. Still, all he could do was wait for Lance to start. This was, after all, his idea.

Finally, Lance took a deep breath. “I… honestly don’t know where to start.”

“Well, what was it you wanted to talk about?” Keith asked.

“There was that fight we had, the night I left—I mean, I know we fight a lot, but that was…”

“It was something else,” Keith finished for him.

Lance nodded. “Yeah. And even though it was about the same stuff we’ve fought about before—I don’t like that we had it, and I don’t want things to be like this between us.”

“Me either,” Keith agreed.

“Okay,” Lance huffed. “Here’s the thing. One of the things that kept coming up—I don’t—I never really thought you were nannying me.”

“Then why—“

“Ah, ah, ah! Let me finish!” Lance interrupted. “I’m not used to getting hurt like that. And even if I did, I always bounced back really quickly, so no one ever had to look after me. And then there you were, with a concussion and everything, and you got better in no time, and I—I guess I almost felt inferior. Like I was holding not only myself back, but you too.”

“Lance—“

“I know it doesn’t make sense!” Lance snapped. “But it’s how I felt, and I took it out on you, and I’m sorry for that.”

Keith blinked, at an utter loss as to what to say, for all that he’d thought about it all last night. He closed and opened his mouth repeatedly, desperately looking for something to say but coming up with nothing. He didn’t want Lance to have gone through all that effort to apologize and then say nothing—Hunk’s words suddenly resonated in his head over everything the noise of everything else. Build a bridge; meet him halfway.

“I’m sorry too!” He blurted.

Lance looked up at him, and Keith couldn’t help but think of how startlingly blue Lance’s eyes are. How was it even possible? He had to shake himself out of the line of thinking—he had to focus!

“What for?” Lance asked, eyes wide.

Keith ran an agitated hand through his hair. “I—you weren’t wrong, about me keeping you within arm’s reach while pushing you away at the same time.”

He paused to take a deep breath. “Lance, I really do think I want to be your friend, but I—I have a hard time letting people in, and I know that’s no excuse, but I’m so afraid of people leaving me so I just—I just…”

“Push them out before they leave you first,” Lance finished.

“Yeah,” Keith sighed.

Lance shuffled himself closer to Keith on the couch. Keith had to resist the urge to shy away from the closeness.

“Keith,” Lance started. “Trust me when I say I know I can be a bit much sometimes. Plenty of people have told me. And I’m not really great at listening a lot. But if it means that we can, you know, exist in the same space without trying to bite each others’ heads off, I’ll listen. If I’m being too much, just tell me to back off a little—nicely, mind you—and, I don’t know, maybe that’ll help.”

“I think so,” Keith said quietly, all too aware of how close Lance was now. “But… I wouldn’t mind if sometimes, you pushed a little bit. Sometimes I need that. Shiro kind of had to force his way into my life too, and I thought it was annoying at the time but now he’s one of the most important people in my life, and I couldn’t imagine my life without him.”

“You think maybe I could be a person like that?” Lance asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Keith swallowed hard, leaning forward ever so slightly. “Yeah,” he breathed.

“I’d like that,” Lance said.

Keith wasn’t sure what was happening, but whatever it was was abruptly interrupted by a loud buzzing that made both of them jump. Lance dug out his phone from his pocket and huffed.

“Sorry, I should—“ he said, waving his phone slightly. On the screen, Keith could see Allura’s bright and smiling face.

“Yeah, of course,” Keith urged. He wasn’t going to tell Lance he couldn’t answer a call from his girlfriend, for all that it honestly annoyed him. Of all times for her to call…

Lance stepped out into the hallway, and was hardly gone for a minute before he stepped back into the apartment, much to Keith’s surprise.

“So!” Lance started, a bit more brightly. “Allura wasn’t at the Bureau when all this went down, so tell me, what happened?”

“Terrell happened,” Keith said.

He started from the very beginning, not skimping on any details. Lance listened intently all the while, looking more and more concerned with every confusing action that Terrell had taken. Many of the questions he had were the same questions that Keith had been struggling to answer all day. When Keith explained everything that happened, Lance seemed to think there was merit to the insider theory.

“I mean, she obviously wasn’t there to steal stars,” Lance pointed out.

“And Hunk pointed out that she specifically went to the searcher’s department,” Keith added.

“And you said when she got to Shiro she said he wasn’t quite what she was looking for?”

“But still interesting, were her words,” Keith confirmed with a nod.

“Okay, well that just doesn’t make sense, but we’re probably looking for someone in the searcher’s department who doesn’t do field work—after all, she waited about an hour after the day shift started right?” Lance inquired.

“That could just be a coincidence, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been just outside, waiting for all the field workers to leave for the day. Less people to get in her way then,” Keith reasoned.

“It’s a tough call. She’s practically unpredictable, but we can’t just not try and figure out what she’s doing, she’s too dangerous,” Lance said, flopping back on the couch.

“I’d like to know how she got those lightning powers in the first place,” Keith mentioned.

“No kidding.”

Keith huffed loudly, throwing his head back. “I just want to—to—!”

“To find her and shake all the answers out of her?” Lance suggested.

“Yes! Exactly! Thank you, Lance,” Keith exclaimed. “Do you think we could—“

“No,” Lance cut him off. “Trust me when I say I want to go after her as much as you, but she’s just too unpredictable, too dangerous—“

“Yeah, but if we could get more information, then she wouldn’t be as dangerous,” Keith said.

“Or she could be more dangerous,” Lance countered.

“How could knowing her motives make her more dangerous?!”

“I mean, okay, I get it, if we know her motives then it’s easier to work around her and maybe eventually stop her,” Lance said. “But charging in headfirst against an opponent we don’t know? That’s a recipe for a bad time. Maybe if we had something that evened the odds against her it wouldn’t be as much of a question, but…”

“Yeah,” Keith reluctantly agreed.

“But,” Lance began. “If you do go after her, no matter what, don’t go alone.”

“Oh, uh, okay?” Keith said.

“Keith, I’m serious,” Lance insisted. “Promise me. If you go after Terrell, bring someone with you. It doesn’t have to be me, but—as long as you’re not alone. Promise me?”

“I—“ Keith stammered, a little taken aback by the earnest sentiment. “Okay. I promise.”

Lance didn’t stay long after that, needing to leave sooner rather than later if he wanted to get home at a decent time. Keith offered to let him stay the night, but Lance declined, citing the fact that he didn’t have a change of clothes or anything. With a smile and a wink though, he assured Keith that perhaps another time would see him spending the night again. Keith sputtered and sent him on his way, closing the door with a sigh and a dopey grin. Only a second later, he thumped his forehead against the door. He was immensely relieved, feeling as though he was walking on air after the weight of that argument with Lance had been dissolved from his shoulders. 

And yet something lingered deep in his chest, something small, slightly squirming, that made him restless.

It wasn’t necessarily bad, he pondered as he got ready for bed. But it was unfamiliar and strange, so he wasn’t entirely certain it was good either. By the time he fell into bed, he was beyond exhausted, relieved, but also a little unsettled. As Keith drifted off to sleep, the memory of Lance winking at him, ever so casually, replayed in his mind without him even realizing it.

When he dreamed that night, it was as chaotic as the day had been, but far more vivid and multicolored. At first, he was back in the searcher’s department, just after Terrell’s dramatic exit. Hee saw those spots of color in the darkness again, except this time, instead of fading away as his eyes adjusted to the darkness again, they grew and grew, and coalesced into something bigger than Keith himself. They loomed, almost threatening, forcing Keith back until he felt, for the first time, like he was falling through that familiar dark.

He woke with a start in the middle of the night, disoriented and nauseated, and overwhelmingly alarmed by the dream he’d had. He tried taking a few calming breaths, thinking to himself that it was far too abstract to be anything to be reasonably scared by—shades of red, not entirely like rust, but bringing to mind a certain fierceness that Keith thought he could relate to. More than that, it was, in spite of the warm color, cold and calculating, almost terrifying. Keith wracked his brain over the memory of the dream, trying to remember if there had been anything more than just a color, but he came up with nothing.

It hadn’t been just the red either. A pale blue, larger than the red and yet far less intimidating. Or rather, it had been intimidating, but in a much different way. It almost reminded Keith of the sensation of flying, while also being aware of just how far below him the ground was, should he be so careless as to fall from the sky. It was something old—the only word that came to word to describe it was primal, but even then, to Keith, it didn’t seem to fit. It was old—or rather, the idea behind it was old. Not that Keith could articulate what that idea was, but whatever it was, it was ancient. So much so as to feel almost familiar, but before Keith could even get close to sussing it out, he fell asleep again.

This time, his dream settled into something a little more familiar. Cold and dark, Keith found himself following that familiar yet undefined path again. This time, however, he took notice of the wandering points of light that had always accompanied him on this lifelong march of his. He’d always known that they were there, but never spared much thought to them. Now, however, it was nearly impossible to not notice them, and how they were so very nearly aligned in a perfect line, with Keith at the very end. At the very opposite was that bright, unmoving point of light around which they all rotated, towards which they all inexplicably reached although they could never get any closer than they already were.

Keith felt a buzzing under his skin. He heard whispers of some great happening, something that would happen soon. Near the central point of light, a few smaller wanderers were still scrambling to find their places. It was exciting, it was new, it spoke of some great change that even Keith was looking forward to seeing. 

Somewhere in the middle though, from a large swirl of violent storms, an equally stormy sentiment: “I don’t want this,” it said. “I don’t want this!”

It was but a single voice among all the others, one wish among many. For all it’s earnest power, it faded, quieter and quieter, until Keith realized he was waking up in the silence of his own room.

He realized with a twinge of frustration that he had about half an hour until his alarm went off.

Work that day was more cleaning, which Lance was not at all thrilled to be participating in, especially given that, in spite of the high priority work order, there was still a massive hole in the building letting all the cold in. Keith had warned him about it, but he must’ve forgotten and so didn’t wear as many layers as he might’ve. As such, he was required, by law, to complain loudly about it. At least, that’s how it seemed to Keith, who had to listen to him the entire day.

“I’m not saying I don’t get it,” Lance said. “Dramatic exits are where it’s at! But did she really have to blow a hole in the ceiling?! Does she not know how cold it gets? Is she hoping we’ll all just freeze in place so that she and her snatchers can just walk in and talk as many stars as they want?!”

“Maybe she’s trying to freeze your mouth shut,” Keith suggested.

“That—hey!” Lance exclaimed as he realized exactly what Keith meant.

Keith laughed as he ducked out of Lance’s reach, while Lance tried to bat at him for the joke, grinning all the while. It quickly turned into a pseudo-swordfight, using the brooms they were supposed to be using for cleaning as weapons and quite forgetting their responsibilities for a few moments. For all that the wood clacked loudly, no one seemed to take any notice, or if they did they didn’t care to stop their shenanigans.

It wasn’t until Shiro found them, in the midst of a rousing duel, that they sheepishly lowered their brooms and promised to get back to work. As it was, Shiro had sought them out for a reason, and not because he somehow sensed they were playing instead of working. He gestured for them to follow him back to the searcher’s department, much to Lance’s dismay.

“The Bureau is looking for more replacers,” Shiro told them without preamble. “Particularly, they want to train searchers and analysts to become replacers, since they already have a lot of the necessary skills.”

“Jeez, first they’re looking for more people to look for the sun, now they want more replacers, sounds like a lot of shuffling around,” Lance commented through chattering teeth.

“The solar task force is always looking for more people,” Shiro said. “But with this latest development, and realization that there are snatchers that could walk in at any time and take stars as they please, the higher ups are making some changes. Stars are going to be stored more securely, for one thing, and for another, they want to train more replacers. You can’t snatch a star from the sky, after all.”

“Okay,” Keith started. “But what does that have to do with us?”

“Like I said, they want to train searchers and analysts—essentially, people who already work for the Bureau. And I’ve been told that the disqualifications against you two for replacer training can be waived if you two are interested in doing the training.”

Keith blinked, and then glanced at Lance. He’d applied for replacer training as well? Not only that, but he’d been denied as Keith had? Lance, it seemed, was having the same sort of realization, and it occurred to Keith that he never had gotten around to telling Lance that he’d, ultimately, wanted to be a replacer. The last couple months had been busy.

“Think about it over the weekend,” Shiro said, when neither of them said anything. “But you may be assigned to the training whether you want it or not. It’s just a matter of when. Desperate times, you know.”

With that, he dismissed them to take their lunch. They left the searcher’s department in thoughtful silence. Keith thought to ask Lance why, if he wanted to be the one to find all the planets, and the sun and moon, he had applied for replacer training in the first place, but then he remembered Allura’s words, which seemed so long passed now—that Lance had only applied to the Bureau in the first place following her. Of course he would follow her to be a replacer as well. 

“So,” Lance started. “You want to be a replacer?”

“I…” Keith trailed off, uncertain how to tell Lance of his aspirations and how they’d been put to a halt.

Before he could elaborate, however, Pidge charged into them headfirst (quite literally), and invited them to join her and Hunk for lunch. Taken aback but willing all the same, Keith and Lance found themselves crammed into a booth in a nearby diner across from Hunk and Pidge. Lance sat perhaps a little closer than he ought to, citing the fact that he had spent the entire day thus far freezing to death. Keith, undecided as to whether he was okay with this or not, simply let Lance be. No doubt he would do as he pleased no matter what. He always had, and Keith plenty of reason to believe he always would.

In spite of her light-hearted invitation, it seemed that Pidge had a much more serious motive for inviting them all to lunch.

“They have us searching for Terrell now,” she told them in a low voice after their orders had been taken.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you sure you should be telling us this?” Hunk immediately asked, looking warily around at the crowded diner.

“Didn’t I say I’d be telling you guys what’s going on?” she protested. “Anyways, it’s more than that.”

Keith and Lance leaned in, eager to hear what Pidge had to say.

“First of all, it’s weird that they have the solar task force prioritizing this, right? I mean, yeah, there’s the fact that we think she has an idea where the sun is, but at the end of the day, she’s still just a snatcher. They should be organizing a task force of keepers, right? Looking into ways to counteract her lightning powers, stuff like that, right?” Pidge explained in a whisper that was almost drowned out by the lunch rush that surrounded them.

The other three nodded in-sync their attention rapt.

“What’s more, there’s something the higher-ups aren’t telling me. I mean, why shouldn’t we question why our priority number one, as the solar task force, isn’t finding the sun? They keep telling us that if we find Terrell, we can find the sun—she’s more than just a regular snatcher,” Pidge said.

“We knew that much,” Lance scoffed.

“I mean more than just a snatcher with lightning powers,” Pidge huffed. From under her jacket, she pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Terrell Stern, she used to be a searcher for the Bureau—quit grabbing you two!”

For Keith and Lance both, at the mention of Terrell’s name, had made a mad grab for the papers, eager to know more about this mysterious enemy that had so confounded them for these last couple of months. On the very front page, there indeed she was, pictured, unsmiling, in the Bureau’s uniform.

“Pidge, seriously! This has got to be majorly classified, right?!” Hunk asked, horrified at this obvious breach of secrecy.

“Be quiet Hunk! And yes, it is, but I’m telling you, something is up! They could put out a notice with this picture and information, let the entire Bureau know, let the entire area know, but they’re not! Why?” Pidge challenged.

Keith and Lance, who were still busy poring over the file she had given them, didn’t immediately answer. It was Hunk who realized first.

“They don’t want just anyone finding her,” Hunk suggested. “If it were just a matter of safety, because of her lightning powers, they’d put out a bulletin anyways, telling people to avoid her and call authorities if they saw her. But they don’t want any information on her getting out, despite the threat she poses.”

“Right,” Pidge confirmed.

Meanwhile, Keith was reading a report on Terrell. He leaned towards Lance.

“Look at this,” he said. Lance leaned in closer to read what Keith was reading.

“‘Searcher Stern, during the course of routine searcher duties, was apprehended by three snatchers of violent temperaments,’” Lance read in such a low voice that only Keith could hear it. “‘Being without a partner, Searcher Stern attempted to disable the three snatchers on her own after paging an emergency signal. By the time keepers arrived at her location, all three snatchers were found dead by her hand.’”

Lance paused in his reading, lips pressed into a thin line and his hand grasping Keith’s arm tightly. Keith didn’t blame him. He’d known Terrell was dangerous, but to actually know she was capable of this… It sent ice running through Keith’s veins, an unpleasant chill that drove him to lean even closer to Lance, seeking his warmth.

The report did not elaborate on how Terrell had killed the snatchers, and though Keith was fairly certain of how it was done, he was glad for being spared the detail. Beyond that report, however, there was very little information to be found on Terrell in her own file. Keith, upon hearing that she’d worked for the Bureau, had immediately assumed she’d gotten into the snatching business long before she’d left the Bureau, but found that, if she had, she’d done very well to keep it hidden. Before the report on the incident with the three snatchers, she’d been marked as an exemplary worker, if a bit prone to dark fever. Indeed, there was even a period of probation marked on her file, an extended grounding while she recovered from some more serious effects of oncoming dark fever.

“This is…” Keith started, not even sure what to say about all this new information.

“Yeah,” Pidge said, understanding even without words. “Not only is she way more dangerous than we thought, but the Bureau, for some reason, wants to keep it secret from everyone.”

“So why are you telling us?” Hunk asked, still hesitant about being involved in all this.

“Because you guys are my friends, and I want you to be safe,” Pidge answered. “If the Bureau isn’t going to tell you what you need to know, I will.”

“Thanks, Pidge,” Lance said earnestly. “Good to know all this, since we’re probably going back into the field sooner rather than later.”

“Yeah…” Keith agreed, while his thoughts wandered back to the prospect of replacer training.

The half-hearted sentiment didn’t go unnoticed by Lance.

“You’re thinking of going for replacer training?” He asked.

“Replacer training? I thought you were denied for another month, at least,” Pidge said, gathering up the papers and quickly tucking them back into her jacket.

“I was, but with the recent invasion, they want more replacers in the field, and they’re apparently willing to waive me in,” Keith explained.

“Wow, that’s awesome,” Hunk exclaimed. “I mean, the circumstances that brought it aren’t so great, but it’s great for you!”

Keith nodded. He didn’t say that he was unsure if he would take it or not. He glanced at Lance as their food arrived, wondering what Lance might choose to do. He didn’t like to admit it, even to himself, that he would be disappointed if they were no longer partners, even after such a short time. But he couldn’t simply delay what had always been his plan just because he’d made a new friend. That would get him nowhere in life.

Later, after Keith and Lance were tasked to what Shiro assured them would be, one way or another, their last day in the analyst’s department, Lance brought up the topic that Keith had been avoiding since lunch.

“So, replacer training, huh?” Lance started abruptly.

“Yeah?” Keith said, still a little unwilling.

“I didn’t know you wanted to be a replacer,” Lance said airily, marking a star on the map he was working on.

“Same for you,” Keith replied.

Lance shrugged. “I mean, at first I thought it was a good idea when I first started as a searcher, especially since Allura became a replacer, and I don’t know if I’ve told you, but I kind of followed her into this line of work anyways…”

Keith nodded along as Lance began to ramble, his voice warm and smooth.

“I mean, I was interested in the work in the first place, and me and Allura were always picking up stars as kids and turning them in. Allura always wanted to be a replacer, she loved looking at the star maps and seeing the patterns people saw in them, and she wanted more than anything to bring those pictures, those stories to life again. It’s kind of inspiring, really, how much she believes in the power of stories,” Lance said with such an air of fondness that Keith felt his heart ache.

“Anyways,” Lance continued after a brief pause. “I applied to replacer training at the same time that she did—we were partners when we were both searchers, you know—but while she got in, I was… denied. They… basically the reason was that the evaluators thought I didn’t take my job seriously enough.”

“What? Really?” Keith questioned, genuinely surprised. “That’s… such a lame reason.”

“I know!” Lance exclaimed. “I know I’m a bit of a goofball sometimes, and I try to keep things light-hearted—I mean, these are dark times we’re living in, literally. Sue me for trying to be optimistic.”

“They denied me for being prone to dark fever, according to the evaluators,” Keith blurted.

Lance blinked, surprised. “Really?”

Keith nodded. “Most of it is just—me. Not very sociable, a little too dedicated to work… Really the only solid thing they had on me was that I stared at the sky a little too long sometimes. That’s all. Still, I’m surprised they’re willing to waive all that.”

A period of silence passed between them as they focused on their work, the only sound that of the ticking clock and the scratch of their pens against paper. Around them, analyst’s diligently sorted through piles of stars, dropping them into piles that only they seemed to be able to determine the difference between. The stars made no sound as they hit one another.

“I’ve been thinking,” Lance started again, not looking up from his work. “About joining the solar task force.”

Keith only spared a quick glance up towards Lance, and then went right back to his work. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Lance replied. “Ever since Shiro brought it up. And ever since Pidge mentioned that something’s up… I want to help her find out what it is. But I also don’t want to just, ditch you, you know?”

Keith nodded, something warm and light settling in his chest.

“You’re fine,” Keith assured him. “If you go to the solar task force, then I won’t have to worry about ditching you to go for replacer training.”

“Oh,” Lance said. “Well alright then.”

More silence. Not awkward, at least not to Keith, but silence all the same. He finished the map he was working on, thinking, with almost a thrill of excitement, that he might soon be using maps like these as a replacer in his own right. It meant he would likely have a different partner, as replacers, in spite of their lower numbers, were required to have partners, given the high altitude work they did. He didn’t fancy the idea of having to get used to a new person all over again, especially given the struggle it had been to get used to the last person he’d been forced to partner with. He glanced up at Lance again, who was intent on the map in front of him, almost marvelling at how quickly he’d come to consider him a friend. Granted, the fact that Lance had lived with Keith for over a month had probably helped, as taxing as it had been.

“Hey, Lance,” Keith started this time. Lance looked up, the blue of his eyes vivid in the light of the new fluorescent bulbs. “If—when we go our separate ways… we’ll still keep in touch, right?”

Lance’s eyes widened, if only a fraction. “What are you talking about? Of course we can still keep in touch, and hang out, and all that good stuff that friends do. Did you really think I’d ditch you completely just because we’re going our separate ways?”

“No,” Keith answered, after a ponderous moment. “No, I don’t suppose so.”

“That’s right,” Lance said, winking at Keith once again. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Keith grinned in spite of himself, looking away from Lance’s lopsided smirk. He considered that pull within him, that gravity that centered around Lance that seemed to pull Keith in indefinitely, that would continue to do so until Keith gave in and let himself fall. And Keith wondered, as they worked to the end of their shift, if it wasn’t himself that could not be gotten rid of so easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope y’all enjoyed this chapter, I really enjoyed writing this one. Updates are now on Wednesdays, so I’ll see y’all next week for chapter 6 :D


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween y'all! This chapter is an exciting one! Not only is it the longest chapter so far, but it also marks the (approximate) halfway point of this story! Thanks so far to everyone who has been reading and supporting this fic, y'all give me life.
> 
> Again, if y'all see any typos or sentences that don't make sense, please let me know.

As Shiro had told them, any prior disqualifications were waived, a testament to the Bureau’s desperation. He was, he admitted, surprised to see them going their separate ways, but both Lance and Keith assured them that they had given this much thought, and were certain that they wanted to press forward on the paths they had chosen.

By the time the weekend had passed, there was no turning back. Lance had been accepted to join the solar task force easily, which Pidge was more than delighted about. Sniffing out conspiracies was not so stressful with a friend by your side. Meanwhile, Keith had to wait until the middle of the week to hear back about the prospect of replacer training. It had been just as Shiro assured him, however, and by the end of the week, both he and Lance had started training for their new jobs. But where Lance simply had to go through processing (read: tedious, boring paperwork) to get his security clearance and access badge, Keith had to go through formal training, which, on the first day, consisted only of going over some of the special tools a replacer uses in the course of their work, including an altitude mask and what looked, quite literally, like a sewing kit. Keith was bored out of his mind by the end of the day, and yet somehow drained completely.

“How is replacer training so far?” Lance texted him nearly an hour after he got home.

“Boring,” Keith replied.

“Come on, it’s got to be better than signing your name a thousand and one times promising that you won’t tell anyone about what goes on in the solar task force (I can promise you that Pidge broke almost every promise but like, one or two—she still hasn’t told us if they hoard the good coffee or not. I think she’s hoarding it for herself now),” Lance told him.

“We didn’t even do any flying, we just went over the proper wear and care of the altitude masks, and then we barely got started on the replacement kits,” Keith explained. “It looks like a sewing kit.”

“Yeah, Allura said as much when she started replacer training,” Lance said.

“Any chance of me being her partner? She seems nice.” Keith deliberated on the word he used to describe Allura. He definitely didn’t dislike her, but he didn’t know her all that well either. All he had were bits and pieces that Lance illuminated for him, but he didn’t have an entire picture. Still, he’d prefer her over someone he didn’t know at all.

“Sorry, man, she’s taken ;)” came Lance’s reply. Keith should’ve seen it coming. He was in the middle of typing out an annoyed response when another message arrived. “But seriously, Romelle is pretty cool too, you’ll probably get to meet her sooner or later.”

“Romelle?”

“Allura’s partner? Keep up, Keith.”

Keith chuckled good-naturedly, and they continued to chat idly for at least another hour or so, about their days, about what they were excited about in their new positions—they hardly touched upon the topic of Terrell or what she was up to. Too often had they already gone in circles regarding her; it was nice to talk as though things were normal, if only for a while. He only noticed the time when he had to stifle a yawn, practically falling asleep stretched out along the couch. He told Lance it was time for him to be getting to bed, and once again Lance teased him for being an old man that had to go to bed early. Keith smiled at that, and replied that if Lance was tired from staying up too late he’d better not complain about it to Keith tomorrow. Lance assured him that of all the people he could complain to, Keith was at the top of his list.

He had just settled into bed, already nodding off, when his phone buzzed with yet another message, and he considered, briefly, ignoring it until morning. After all, he was already so comfortable, and to move would break the spell of peak comfort that had settled over him so deeply as to set into his very bones. Yet even as he was thinking of how very much he did not want to move, he reached for his phone all the same.

“Good night, Keith :)” 

Keith turned his face into his pillow, smiling wide. He quickly returned the sentiment (minus the smiley face), and put his phone screen down, determined that he should get at least some sleep that night. And sleep he did, dreaming of light and warmth so tender that it could melt even the most steadfast of icy shells.

The next week was nothing but tedious training, testing and retesting to make sure he could properly wear his altitude mask and work in it—if they could, Keith had no doubt his trainers would have him living in his altitude mask. He quickly tired of how loud his own breath sounded in his ears, but no doubt he would have to get used to it. Once his new supervisors were certain that Keith would be able to breathe while he worked, it was finally, finally time to fly.

As a trainee, Keith would not be partnered off, but rather he would shadow a pair of replacers, watch them at first to see how the replacement process was done (he could read about it all day, he was told—and he had—but actually seeing how it was done was crucial). It was stupendously aggravating to Keith—he just wanted to get to doing his actual job!—but he was a bit less ruffled when he found who he would be shadowing.

“Keith!” Allura called brightly. “I only just found out you’d be the trainee shadowing us today! Are you excited?”

Keith, for all that he’d been running on an undercurrent of excitement ever since he’d found out he was finally going to be a replacer, found that he couldn’t quite match Allura’s enthusiasm and was as such taken aback by her energy. It almost reminded him of Lance.

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” he finally offered, which seemed to satisfy Allura.

“Oh, let me introduce you to my partner,” she tittered, gesturing to a young woman whose hair was as golden as Allura’s was silver. She turned towards Allura’s voice, and, noticing Keith, regarded him as well. “Romelle, Keith—Keith, Romelle.”

Romelle was just finishing pinning back her hair in a braided crown. “Nice to meet you Keith. You were Lance’s partner as a searcher, right? Heard a lot about you.”

“Hopefully nothing too horrible,” Keith said.

“Oh, on the contrary—“ Romelle started, before being shushed by Allura.

Before Keith could inquire, Allura turned their focus onto work. “So! Keith! I know you and Lance had to spend quite a bit of time in the analyst’s department making the maps we use here for our work, so I have no doubt you’re more than familiar with how to read them?”

“I could read them in my sleep at this point,” Keith deadpanned.

“Good, then we don’t have to teach you that, that’s always the most difficult part, but just to make sure,” Allura said, handing the map she held to Keith. “You’ll lead the way today.”

Keith blinked, again taken aback. “Really?”

Allura raised an eyebrow at him. “Unless you don’t think you can…?”

Keith grabbed the map she was holding out. “Let’s go.”

As it turned out, reading a map by itself and actually using it to find his way were two completely different things. To find one’s way in a sky with so few stars was a hard thing indeed, and more than once Keith found himself going the wrong way, only to be gently turned around by Allura, though he could hardly hear her through his altitude mask. He could swear he could hear Romelle laughing at him, though perhaps he was imagining it through the fierce winds that whipped insistently so high up (for the first time in so long he found himself shivering of cold, but he bit his tongue before breathing so much as a word of complaint).

Due to Keith’s less than expert navigating skills, it was a while before they carefully replaced their first star. It was not entirely unlike sewing a button onto cloth, only the star had no holes through which to thread the needle. Romelle fished out a star from her pocket, eyeing it carefully to ensure it was the right one, and then held it against the dark canvas of night as Allura threaded the needle with a thread that shined just as the star did.

“This is no ordinary thread,” Allura explained as she prodded the star with her needle. “When humans were first looking for ways to restore the world to what it had once been, they of course turned to wishes. Naturally a wish didn’t solve all our problems, nor did multiple wishes—but they did give us the tools we need. The stars that were wished upon unspooled, becoming the thread we use now.”

“It means that, no matter what, there will be less stars in the sky when all is said and done,” Romelle added. “But so long as we get the important ones back in the sky, it should be fine.”

“The important ones being those we can see with our naked eyes, from the ground,” Allura continued, weaving her needle expertly in and out of the night. Keith watched carefully, his attention rapt. He found himself wondering what was on the other side of the night. “Plenty of people, sailors, travellers of all kinds, used the stars to navigate at night.”

Keith nodded. “Polaris in the northern hemisphere, and the southern cross in the south.”

“That’s right, those were the primary guide stars,” Allura said, tying off the shining thread and snipping it close to the knot. “Most of the stars—all but one I think—of the southern cross have been found, and a couple stars of ursa minor have been found, but not Polaris. It’s concerning, given that Polaris has always been a dimmer star, there’s talk that someone’s made a wish on it already…”

Allura chattered like that for the majority of the day, Romelle interjecting eagerly from time to time. Keith, all the while, was content to merely listen as Allura managed to explain the job of a replacer and all the accompanying responsibilities as though they were all part of some delightful story. Though she mirrored Lance in so many of her mannerisms, it seemed so often that she was his exact opposite. When Lance told a story, he often got so excited he would trip and stumble over his own words, gesturing wildly with his hands and animating the story. Allura’s words rolled like silver off her tongue, smooth as though practiced, and never interfering with the task at hand, no matter how dedicated to her story she became.

By the time their shift was over, they had only managed to replace about half of the stars allotted to them for that day, thanks to Keith constantly getting turned around and around in the dark of the high sky. Allura assured him that it was no problem at all, really, even as Romelle reminded them both that there was pressure to get more stars in the sky faster. It grated at Keith beyond all belief, that he had kept messing up, but Allura had not lost her patience a single time (or at the very least, she hadn’t shown it). She seemed to have confidence that he’d do better the next day, and told him that as soon as he could get around without getting lost, he could start trying to replace stars himself.

Normally he would’ve been excited at the prospect of replacing stars sooner rather than later, but the frustrations of the day had him feeling a little discouraged. He found himself thinking that he might even drop a star on his first attempt to replace one.

So taken was he by these defeated thoughts that he didn’t notice Lance, who was impossible to miss on any other occasion, until Lance threw an arm around him, knocking him clear out of his head.

“Hey! I heard you’re training with Allura and Romelle! How’s that going?” Lance asked enthusiastically.

“Oh, uh…” Keith started lamely. “It’s… going.”

“Really? Cause I heard you got lost, like, several times,” Lance said in a teasing tone.

“Allura told you?!” Keith demanded, slipping out from under Lance’s arm.

Lance looked genuinely surprised. “She—I was joking.”

Keith promptly deflated. “Oh.”

“So you actually did get lost?” Lance asked in a bit of a softer tone, as they began to walk.

“Yeah,” Keith sighed deeply, shoulders slumping. “I can read the map, but using it to get around in the sky is completely different. Allura had me lead the way the whole time, even after the first few times she had to turn me around.”

“She’s like that,” Lance said with a sage nod. “She’s of the mind that success doesn’t come without failure, and a lot of it.”

Keith tutted. “I guess it makes sense…”

“Don’t worry,” Lance said, slinging his arm around Keith again. “It just means she has faith in you. It’s when she doesn’t let you do anything that you have to worry.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Keith replied. “How’re you doing?”

“Right! So, now that I’m all processed and stuff, what they do is they divide us into teams,” Lance started, all the heralds of a rant making themselves known to Keith almost immediately.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately, Keith couldn’t decide), they arrived just outside Keith’s apartment building. They stopped for a brief moment, for Lance had just been telling Keith how things were going, and it seemed like he had an awful lot to say, and Keith was actually interested in listening. He knew Lance didn’t like the cold, so of course there was only one reasonable thing to do.

“Want to come up for a bit?” He asked Lance.

Lance gave him a smile that lit up his face. “Sure!”

When they reached his apartment, Lance settled in easily, remembering the near two months he’d lived there. Keith, on instinct, turned up the heat for him, though he knew that he’d be sweating sooner rather than later. It wasn’t like Lance was staying the night, so he could push through it.

“You don’t have to turn up the heat for me,” Lance said, lounging easily on the couch. “If you have something hot to drink though, I won’t say no.”

Keith didn’t turn the heat back down. “It’s fine, and anyways I don’t like hot drinks, so I don’t have any.”

“You don’t like hot drinks?! Not even hot chocolate?!” Lance exclaimed, eyes wide.

“Nope, too sweet for me,” Keith said.

Lance rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Figures. Anyways, so the solar task force, right?”

Lance then spent the next hour telling Keith every intricate detail of the interior of the solar task force (they did indeed hoard the good coffee, not that it really mattered to Lance apparently, since he, apparently, found coffee too bitter. Pidge, on the other hand, was thrilled and even more glad that she didn’t have to share it with Lance). According to Lance, the task force, especially as it grew, was divided into very small teams, and their day to day work was not so very different from that of searching, only, as Lance put it, far more boring.

It was up to more senior members to do formal investigations of any leads, but from their results were areas that required thorough searching. As of right now, investigators pointed them towards literal nests of snatchers, which had gotten Lance into trouble more times than he could count, and it had barely been a week since he had properly started.

“They have you guys going after snatchers?” Keith asked incredulously. Pidge had said they were looking for Terrell, but for them to be dealing directly with snatchers…

“We haven’t found Terrell. Flashy as her power is, she knows how to keep a low profile,” Lance huffed.

“So, wait, they have you guys searching in small teams, dealing directly with snatchers—“ Keith started.

“We have a couple of keepers on each team, transferred and given proper clearance and all,” Lance interrupted.

“Still,” Keith protested. “What do they expect you to if you ever actually find Terrell? She’s way more dangerous when she’s cornered.”

He remembered vividly Terrell’s final burst of power at the Bureau, the one that allowed not only her, but all of her lackeys as well, time enough to escape. He shuddered to think what she might do if she was found in a place she thought herself safe. As of yet, she seemed to have no upper limit. The Bureau was being reckless, foolhardy—it was one thing for an individual to run in headfirst without foresight or plan, but for an organization to order it’s people, knowingly, to do so…

“It’s a bad way to run things, yeah,” Lance agreed. “But now I know what Pidge was talking about.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s something the higher ups aren’t telling us. They’re being way too flippant when it comes to Terrell. It should be the keepers job to actually find and detain Terrell, and then hand her over to the solar task force for questioning about the whereabouts of the sun… But they have us going after her directly and they won’t tell us why,” Lance mused.

“So what will you do?” Keith asked.

“Hard to say. I mean, what do you do against someone that has lightning powers? Can she be electrocuted, or is she immune? I could probably make sure I’m wearing rubber-soled boots, but otherwise…” Lance shrugged. “Guess I just have to be quick.”

Keith thought to how Pidge had held her own against Terrell, if only for a short time. She had been quick, but she was small, able to get within Terrell’s reach and stay there. Lance, so long as he was just as fast, could probably do well with his reach, but even so…

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over me,” Lance added with a crooked grin. “I know she’s dangerous, just as well as you do, but she can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Right,” Keith sighed. “You’re right.”

“What was that? I didn’t quite hear that, could you maybe repeat that, maybe write it down so—“

“You heard me, now quit it!” Keith laughed, shoving Lance by his shoulder.

“Nope! Nuh-uh, I went temporarily deaf—!” Lance insisted, shoving Keith back.

Soon enough they were play-fighting with great energy, smacking and shoving and soon enough trying to claim victory by pinning the other down. Several times they both kicked out with their legs and accidentally whacked the coffee table, which Keith was sure would result in a brilliant array of bruises later on. Neither of them refused to yield. Once or twice Keith thought he had the upper hand, until Lance neatly twisted out of his grasp and threatened to win this little scuffle.

Eventually, Lance tired first, and Keith managed to pin him against the couch, both of them panting and laughing breathlessly. Even in defeat Lance was resist, trying to escape just one more time, but Keith had him well and pinned.

“Come on, give it up, I win,” Keith insisted as Lance continued to struggle.

“No—you—haven’t!” Lance gasped.

And the next thing Keith knew, his world was spinning far too fast, and when it stopped he was securely between Lance and the couch, with Lance looking far too pleased with himself as he held Keith down by his wrists.

“So, what were you saying about winning?” Lance asked.

“Shut up!” Keith snorted.

Then Lance lowered his tone, speaking softly, “Still think I can’t handle Terrell?”

Keith blinked, taken aback. “I—I never thought you couldn’t.”

“But you were worried.”

“Of course I was, I—Lance, fighting Terrell is different from pinning someone down on a couch!” Keith protested.

“I know,” Lance said, his voice still level. “But I also don’t need you worrying about me when you don’t need to be.”

“Who says I need to? Can’t I just worry about you because I don’t want you to get hurt?” Keith asked, his voice almost pleading.

“I guess I can’t stop you, but I don’t want you to,” Lance replied, slumping down on top of Keith. 

Keith, tired from their scuffle, did nothing to stop him. It was like having a warm, weighted blanket on top of him, something he would normally hate, but which Lance made seem reasonably cozy. Lance regarded him with those deep blue eyes, his expression almost searching. It was very nearly uncomfortable, if only because whatever Lance was searching for, Keith was certain he’d be able to find it.

“Why shouldn’t I worry?” Keith inquired.

“I just said, I don’t want you to,” Lance retorted.

Keith rolled his eyes. “I know, but why?”

“Well, would you want people worrying about you?”

“I… That’s not the same, I’m not going directly into danger on a daily basis,” Keith protested.

“That’s not what I was asking, Keith,” Lance said, idly brushing a strand of hair out of Keith’s face. “I’m asking… if you were in my place, heading into danger without anything more than a whisper to go off… would you want people wasting their energy worrying about you, when in reality they might not need to worry at all?”

“It’s not a waste of energy,” Keith said assuredly. “It’s not a waste of my energy to worry about you.”

Lance’s eyes widened at that, and then he smiled, so softly and with such warmth as to set Keith’s heart to melting. They stayed like that for a while, though all playfulness had subsided and they were simply talking. Lance couldn’t seem to keep his fingers out of Keith’s hair, but when Keith mentioned it, Lance insisted that he was thinking of all the ways to cut away his stupid mullet.

After a few moments, Lance shuffled, his expression suddenly confused. He patted at Keith’s chest, and Keith quickly realized that the glass vial that contained his wish was probably jamming uncomfortably at Lance. He pulled it out, the dim light casting stark shadows on Lance’s inquiring face.

“Why haven’t you wished for anything yet?” he asked.

“Nothing worth wishing for,” Keith answered simply.

“Really?”

Keith reached to gently set the little flask on the coffee table. “Yeah. I mean, most things I want are things that I can get on my own.”

“Never took you to be the patient type,” Lance teased gently.

“No, I’m not really,” Keith laughed. “But I was worse when I was younger. Thanks to Shiro I’m a bit better, and I’m thankful I haven’t blown my wish on something that never needed wishing for in the first place.”

Lance hummed thoughtfully, his eyes drooping slightly.

“Have you made a wish for anything?” Keith asked suddenly.

He expected Lance to answer immediately with something whimsical, or perhaps something small but with personal meaning to Lance. There was no telling, when it came to Lance.

The actual answer, however, was something Keith could’ve never guessed.

“I can’t make wishes,” Lance admitted in a voice barely above a whisper.

Keith could only stare. “What?”

Looking away, Lance continued, “I’ve tried. When I was a kid, I’d try making wishes on stars I’d find while playing, and kids are supposed to be great wishmakers, you know? But no matter what the wish, whether it was small or big or realistic or not… None of my wishes ever came true.”

“Oh… Lance, I—“

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Lance assured him. “I’m happy with where I’m at in life, and I got here without wishes, so I guess I didn’t need any after all.”

Lance then started to tell Keith of all the things he’d tried wishing for as a child, some things so completely ridiculous as to set Keith to giggling uncontrollably, other things being so thoughtful and kind that Keith could only smile. Once all his stories had been exhausted, Lance asked if there had been anything Keith had almost wished for, or if there were things he would wish for if they were not made impossible by the cardinal rules of wish making. Keith admitted some things that were more personal, things that he normally would’ve kept as close to him as he did his star. In the dim light of his apartment, with Lance so close and looking as though he was hanging onto every word that Keith spoke, they fell too easily from his mouth, and Keith found he didn’t mind at all. Not with Lance.

Keith couldn’t say when it happened, or how, exactly, but the next thing he knew, he was aware that he was dreaming. From the dark of his sleep, as always, there came light. First small and flickering, as stars were wont to be. Then, so far it could hardly be considered to be twice as big as the other stars, came another light. It was not so much different from a star—in fact, as far as Keith was concerned, it was a star, only a little closer than the others. And yet… it was different. Keith felt it on his skin, as it’s warmth touched him, seeped in and made itself welcome within him. Unthinkingly, he reached for it, wanting to hold it close, but then withdrew. Too close, he knew, and it would burn, it would be too much. Certainly it was strong enough to keep him close, of that Keith would never doubt. But what if it chose to leave? Would Keith be strong enough to convince it to stay, without grabbing and holding it tight?

Before he could even come close to answering the questions he was asking, the light, without warning engulfed him—but it did not burn. It was almost overwhelming, certainly, as it had been before, but it was softer, somehow, enveloping Keith as though it were conscious of him, as though he were something precious.

And then Lance was there.

“Well,” Lance said, blinking and looking around. “This is new.”

Keith awoke with a start. Lance was still lying on top of him, cozy as could be and snoring lightly. He had no idea what time it was, but surely they hadn’t been sleeping for that long… Lance’s phone rang loudly—it was what had woken Keith in the first place. Then, Keith’s phone was ringing too. Suddenly he didn’t want to check the time. He had a very bad feeling that he wouldn’t like what he found at all.

Indeed, when he finally mustered up the willpower to look at his phone, he all but tossed Lance off of him, startling Lance into sudden wakefulness. He was, at first, very cross to have been awoken in such a manner, not yet realizing what exactly the problem was. He thought they’d only dozed for an hour or so. Keith urged him to check his phone, while he himself shoved his shoes on, knowing that today was going to be several kinds of awful. Lance practically screamed and moved as quickly as Keith to put his shoes on.

And that was how the two of them ended up sprinting to the Bureau, an hour late for work and wearing the same clothes as they had the day before. They wished each other luck with their respective supervisors before parting ways. Keith, for all that he wasn’t looking forward to hearing the impression that this was making on his new supervisor, couldn’t help but be glad this hadn’t happened while they were still searchers—Shiro would’ve had a field day with this (after, of course, having their heads for being so egregiously late).

Keith’s new supervisor was less than thrilled to find Keith late, but felt that wasting time on lectures was pointless. A stern, “Don’t let it happen again,” and Keith was on his way. Allura and Romelle, on the other hand, had plenty of time to lecture him, and enough cause to do so, given that they’d had to wait for him this whole time, wasting precious time they needed to replace stars. For the first half of their shift, Allura was so cross as to make Keith trail behind them and watch, not even letting him guide them as she had the day before.

Given that he had nothing to do but follow, Keith took the time to marvel at the scenery so far below him. It was completely different, looking down from this height. Where once he could make out particular buildings and distinct features, now only he could see a brilliant tapestry of lights dotting the pitch black earth. Were it not for pictures he’d seen before, Keith might’ve wondered if this was what the night sky had been like before the fall. Regardless, it was a pretty picture all the same, and Keith almost wished he had a camera.

Around midday, they paused, and Allura turned to him, “I hope you don’t make a habit of this.”

“I won’t!” Keith insisted. “Ask Shiro, I’m never late, I’m either here or I’m not!”

“So then why were you late today?” Romelle inquired.

“I—uh…” Keith stammered, glancing at Allura. Exactly how did he say that a human being had fallen asleep on top of him and they’d both been so comfortable that they’d both slept through both of their alarms? Especially when that human being happened to be her boyfriend? “I—overslept.”

“And you’ve never overslept before?” Romelle pressed.

“It happens to everyone eventually!” Keith snapped. “It won’t happen again!”

“Alright, alright…” Romelle grumbled. “I was only wondering…”

“I know it happens,” Allura said. “It’s happened to me before, it’s just that we’re under a lot of pressure now to get these stars in the sky in a hurry—I won’t begrudge you for it this time, and I’m sorry for being a little cross, but—well, you understand, don’t you?”

Keith nodded. “I understand.”

“Wonderful. Then it’s time for you to lead the way again,” Allura told him enthusiastically, holding out the map for him to take.

To his credit (or perhaps it was only because he had only started leading the way halfway through the day), Keith only took them in the wrong direction twice. Thanks to Allura and Romelle taking the lead for the first half, they were very nearly caught up with their daily quota, which left Keith feeling a little less disheartened than he had the day before.

“Don’t be late again!” Romelle teased as she took Allura’s hand and walked with her out of the replacer’s department at the end of the day.

Keith gave her an exasperated wave as he rolled his eyes. He had a feeling he’d run into Lance again today, and he was determined that what happened yesterday should not happen again today, regardless of how much he’d actually enjoyed it. When he left the replacer’s department, however, the first person he encountered was not Lance, but Shiro. And Keith did not like the look on his face at all.

“So,” Shiro drawled, face carefully composed with a small smile. “I heard you were late today.”

“How do you even know that? Who do you have following me?” Keith demanded, looking around as though he might actually find someone clinging to the ceiling just above him.

Shiro laughed, but cryptically provided, “I just know these things. You know who else was late?”

“I’m not answering that,” Keith huffed, walking away. Shiro, of course, had no problem with following.

“I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, of course,” Shiro continued.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Keith insisted.

“I mean, you’ve never been late before, but I’m sure it was just a matter of chance that had you running in late at the same time as Lance—“

“Shiro, seriously?!” Keith exclaimed as they exited the building.

“What?” Shiro asked, the picture of innocence.

“What do you even think happened? And why do you keep insisting that there’s something going on between us?” Keith demanded, more than a little irritated now.

“Well, I wouldn’t have to guess if you’d just tell me,” Shiro pointed out, the teasing completely absent from his voice.

Keith sighed. “He stayed the night and we both overslept. There. Happy?”

“Don’t know yet,” Shiro said. “Are you?”

“What kind of question is that Shiro?” Keith asked, at this point just tired.

“Keith,” he started in a much more serious tone. “You and Lance definitely had some issues starting out, but I feel like—I don’t know, I’ve just never seen you like this with anyone. Sue me for thinking you might like him.”

Keith’s face grew hot at that. “Of course I like him, but not in the way you’re implying.”

“Oh?”

“And even if I did—which I don’t,” Keith continued pointedly. “He’s dating Allura, how many times do I have to remind you?”

“And how many times do I have to ask you what makes you so sure they’re dating?” Shiro retorted as they skirted the ever growing patch of ice on the sidewalk. Keith absently thought that someone really needed to shovel some salt onto it.

“I’m telling you, if you saw them, you’d know. Allura and Lance are dating,” Keith insisted. He was about to give empirical evidence (which really wasn’t empirical at all, just inferences made from really obvious observations), when a startled yelp from behind them caught his attention.

Of course, who else should it be but Lance, lying very defeated on the ground? Keith shot Shiro a glance that hopefully communicated that he better keep his mouth shut, and went to offer a helping hand, or at the very least make sure he was okay.

“Hey, you okay?” Keith asked, wondering just how much, if any, of the conversation Lance had heard. Hopefully none of it. Keith pleaded to the stars above and around that he didn’t hear any of it.

“Maybe a bruised ego, and butt, but otherwise I’m good,” Lance assured him, taking the hand that was offered.

It wasn’t until Lance was upright that Keith noticed that he seemed… droopy? There was no other word for it—Lance, normally so bright and easy-going, was unusually quiet and slouched.

“Bad day at work?” Keith asked. Up ahead, Shiro said he’d be going on home, and Keith bid him farewell, thankful that Shiro had decided to not tease him in front of Lance.

Lance shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad—I got chewed out for being late, but otherwise it was pretty chill. We raided an abandoned snatcher hideout and found a few handfuls of stars, but no sun to speak of so far.”

His explanation was short and bland, so uncharacteristic of Lance that Keith couldn’t help but feel as though there was more going on. The question was, how far should he push? Certainly he and Lance were doing a lot better than they had before, but this easy friendship between them was still relatively new. Keith didn’t want to ruin it by doing or saying the wrong thing. And Lance didn’t like to feel babied… perhaps it was better to not ask.

“So… I, uh, overheard you and Shiro talking, just now,” Lance started abruptly, making Keith wish desperately to sink into the ground. 

He quickly banished the thought from his mind, acutely aware of the star pressed against his chest—knowing the fickle nature of wishes, he could very well end up falling through the sidewalk and all the way to the other side of the world. While it would certainly give him an escape, Keith was certain he didn’t want to be trapped in a disaster situation like that. What a way to spend his one wish.

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Keith mumbled quickly. “I don’t normally gossip, but Shiro seems to think there’s something going on between us even though there’s not, and anyways you and Allura—“

“We’re not dating,” Lance interrupted.

“You’re—“ Keith stuttered, face blazing hot once more. “I’m—I am so sorry—“

Lance grinned, almost seeming like his normal self again. “Don’t worry about it, most people think we’re dating at first, but I’m impressed you’ve thought so for so long, especially now that you’ve met Romelle…”

“What does Romelle have to do with it?” Keith asked.

“Oh my stars,” Lance laughed. “That—I thought it would be obvious—“

“If it were obvious, I wouldn’t be asking,” Keith huffed.

“They’re dating, you dork,” Lance wheezed in the midst of his fit of laughter.

“Oh.”

Okay, so Keith had thought them to be very friendly—it wasn’t his fault that he’d thought that Allura was dating Lance. If he’d known that that wasn’t the case, maybe he would’ve put two and two together, but one misconception led to another. Still, two misunderstandings in one? Keith was feeling mortified at the moment. And then there was that little voice that sounded too much like Shiro whispering in his ear that this (probably) meant that Lance was single, but Keith ignored it just as he did the real Shiro. Even if Keith liked Lance in that way—which he didn’t, he continuously insisted—a relationship needed a two way connection to work. Keith was certain of two things: Firstly, that there was no way Lance was interested in Keith like that, and secondly, a romantic relationship between them would more than likely not work. 

Meanwhile, Lance had finally managed to quell his laughter, and said to Keith, “You’re incredible, you know that?”

If Keith had to work to squash the fluttering in his chest at that, he hoped it didn’t show. “Whatever,” he said, turning to walk home, wondering idly if Lance would follow.

“Oh, and Keith,” Lance added, walking up beside Keith. “About last night…”

Keith held his breath. The entire day his thoughts had revolved, not only around the fact that it had most certainly caused him to oversleep and be late to work for the first time ever, but how nice it had been. Keith had never thought himself much one for cuddling, but maybe, if it were like that, then maybe one day, with the right person…

“If you want—that is, if it makes you feel more comfortable, we can pretend it never happened,” Lance said.

It was like a physical punch to the gut, and though Lance hadn’t laid a hand on him, Keith felt winded all the same. But it was fine, it was perfectly fine, Keith assured himself, and he assured Lance just the same. It wasn’t that he was necessarily uncomfortable with what had happened—he just didn’t want to really talk about it with other people, which he supposed, indicated some level of discomfort, but at the very least, he must’ve been thinking that, between himself and Lance, at least…

But it was a done deal then, and the mind lingers on that which it can’t have. When Keith arrived in his apartment, quite alone, he couldn’t help but feel that it was very empty, and perhaps for once a bit too cold for his tastes. He absently stretched out on the couch, suddenly with far too much time to think. Try as he might, he couldn’t help but remember the sensation of Lance resting gently on top of him, how he’d awoken with his arms wrapped around him. If he thought about it hard enough, Keith realized, he could almost feel the ghost of the memory, not yet dimmed by time. Rather than make him drowsy, however, it kept him wide awake and wondering… wondering if perhaps it was time to stop living in denial.

For Keith, for all that he had looked at several people and guessed the wrong sort of relationships between them all, was not so oblivious as to be unaware of his own nature. It was painfully obvious to him, as it clearly was to Shiro. That didn’t mean he had to like it, of course. Not like there was anything for it, of course, and Keith ultimately decided that living in denial, at least for a little while longer, wouldn’t hurt anyone, least of all himself.

The next few weeks passed easily, and Keith mastered not only the art of navigating the near starless skies, but also that of replenishing them with stars once more. He had not, as he feared, dropped a star on his very first attempt to replace it, but he was horribly conscious of the possibility the entire time. Afterwards, he had asked Allura and Romelle if they’d ever dropped any stars, and they immediately were tripping over themselves to tell stories of the time the other had dropped stars—it wasn’t all that uncommon among replacers, but damned if it wasn’t annoying.

Dropped stars aside (for Keith eventually did drop one, and made a mad dive for it that was at once comical and impressive, according to Romelle), Keith completed his training and became an officially certified replacer, much to his delight. Lance, upon hearing this, insisted that they go out to celebrate. Keith wasn’t so sure, but before he could say he would rather just go home and bask in the warm glow of his accomplishment, Lance had already texted Pidge, Hunk, Allura, Romelle, and Shiro, all who were eager to congratulate Keith properly. There was nothing for it, and Keith found that, despite the fervent buzzing he felt under his skin with everyone gathered together that made him restless and fidgety, he immensely enjoyed himself.

Lance, meanwhile, had run into his first spot of real trouble, but had managed to get away without a scratch—or a bruise, he later assured Keith. Privately, he told Keith that Pidge had been digging a little deeper, and found that, rather than being immediately dismissed from the Bureau for the murder of the three snatchers (for one in self-defense was already grounds for a lengthy probation), she had been transferred to a planetary task force. Both Lance and Keith found this immensely strange—what was more, Pidge had yet to find exactly which specific task force it had been. It was as though the whole story was scattered into bits and pieces, so that even if one piece were to be discovered accidentally, no one, except for someone who knew of all the places to look, would have the whole story.

It was more than suspicious, at the very least. Keith cynically wondered if perhaps the Bureau, as a whole, ought not to be trusted, but Lance was more optimistic. Perhaps, he suggested, Terrell was just that dangerous. Keith would only agree that it was likely a combination of both.

At least twice Keith had gotten sick from working in higher altitudes, and ended up missing a total of an entire week over the course of the next month or so. Each time, Lance had taken the time to visit him, though he had not much to offer but his company—Keith found that that was more than enough, and often felt much better after a visit from Lance. Slowly, but surely, he was starting to think that maybe it was time to stop living in denial, but then, if he actually went and acknowledged, even if only to himself, how he was feeling, what was he supposed to do then? Keith had no idea.

As an officially certified replacer, Keith was soon to be assigned a proper partner, which he was dreading if he was entirely honest. He had been lucky so far, first with Lance, and then with Allura and Romelle. Lance assured him that if the two of them could get along, Keith could make it work with anyone. As it was, there were an odd number of replacers in the department, and Keith was the most newly certified—he would have to wait for someone else to finish their training before getting a proper partner. In the meantime, he stayed with Allura and Romelle, which, since Keith was now proficient with all replacer tasks, meant that they could work faster, and were thus assigned a slightly larger quota to meet.

One day brought a comet sailing serenely overhead, dusting the entire area with snow. Keith met Lance along his way to work (which seemed to be happening more frequently lately, Keith couldn’t help but notice, though he didn’t mind), and Lance, upon seeing Keith, immediately stifled a laugh.

“What?” Keith asked.

“You’ve got snow in your hair,” Lance pointed out.

Keith reached up to pat the top of his head—he’d forgotten his hat, apparently. No wonder he was feeling the chill more acutely today. He shrugged; there wasn’t much he could do about it until they got to the Bureau. When they got there, however, he’d completely forgotten about it. Lance, on the other hand, immediately ran a hand through Keith’s hair, brushing the snow out of it and making Keith feel quite certain that he didn’t need a hat after all.

“Here,” Lance said, yanking off his own hat and jamming it on Keith’s head before he could so much as say a word of protest.

“What? Lance, no, you’re going to freeze,” Keith said, about the remove the hat, when Lance grabbed his hand to stop him.

“Nah, I’ll be fine,” Lance assured him.

“That’s a lie and you know it,” Keith accused, but lowered his hand all the same. “You know I don’t get as cold as easily as you.”

“Yeah, but I know you get sick a lot more easily than I do,” Lance pointed out.

“Are you saying you’re tired of visiting me?” Keith teased.

“I’m saying I’m tired of seeing you miserable,” Lance said, his hand having gone from holding back Keith’s hand to brushing a few strands of hair out of Keith’s face in so tender a motion Keith could almost fool himself into thinking there was something more than friendship there.

“Oh,” Keith breathed. “Well, thank you.”

“No problem,” Lance said with a grin. “Have fun stitching stars in the sky!”

“Don’t get too roughed up by snatchers today,” Keith called after him, as Lance made to go his own way.

Lance twirled around, shooting Keith a cheeky, troublemaking smile. “No promises.”

He walked into the replacer’s department feeling as though he was already flying, and didn’t even notice at first when Allura looked at him with a strange expression. He did notice eventually, of course, because she didn’t greet him as pleasantly as she normally would. By now he knew that usually meant she was in a bad mood, but she didn’t look at all angry or upset—merely curious.

“What?” Keith inquired of her searching gaze.

“That’s Lance’s hat,” she stated.

Romelle did a double take at that, and added, “Oh, you’re right, it is. Keith, did you know that’s Lance’s hat?”

“Yes, I know,” Keith huffed, as he absently performed his routine checks on his altitude mask. “He let me borrow it because I forgot mine.”

He glanced at Allura again when she didn’t immediately reply, and found her looking quite incredulous. “You’re joking,” she said.

“No, I’m not,” Keith assured her.

Allura and Romelle glanced at each other. They did that often, Keith had noticed, as though talking in a language of looks that only they understood. It was confusing at best, and infuriating at worst. Today it fell somewhere in the middle, at mildly irritating, given they seemed to be acting as though they knew something that Keith didn’t.

“Sorry,” Allura apologized. “Only, Lance has never even let me borrow so much as a scarf if he has to be out in the cold, and he’s known me longer than anyone. Even when we were dating—“

“You guys used to date?” Keith asked, exasperated because, really, just how out of the loop was he and how long was that going to last?

“Yes, for a little while in high school, but ultimately we wanted different things in life,” Allura quickly explained. “But seriously, he just gave it to you? Just like that?”

Keith nodded, and again Allura and Romelle looked at each other, this time with very poorly hidden smiles.

“He just knows that I get sick easily!” Keith protested, though against what he wasn’t yet entirely sure. He had his suspicions though. “He doesn’t want me getting sick again.”

“Awfully sweet of him,” Romelle commented with a nod.

“Very much so,” Allura agreed, mirroring Romelle’s nod.

Keith rolled his eyes. “Let’s just get to work.”

They did indeed get to work, but not before Allura and Romelle insisted on taking a slight detour, lengthwise along the comet that was passing far overhead. It would give the searchers a lot of grief, but replacers would be free of the snow, working well above the comet. Allura and Romelle dove in and out of the tail of the comet, coming out crusted with ice but laughing as though it weren’t an inconvenience at all. Keith had never thought to fly near a comet, and even then they didn’t pass by very frequently. He tentatively ran a hand through it, marvelling at the shower of glittering snow that resulted. He was just about to dive in after Romelle and Allura, just to see what the inside of a comet was like, when someone who wasn’t Romelle or Allura popped out just in front of him, nearly knocking Keith off his broom.

“Keith!” an all too familiar voice called out.

Lance circled around to fly beside Keith, and Keith noticed that several more people, all Bureau workers, were playing in and around the comet. This, then, must be the team Lance had been working with. Lance’s hair was well frosted with ice and snow, which Keith didn’t hesitate to brush out for him. He didn’t fail to notice just how red with cold Lance’s ears and cheeks were.

“You sure you don’t want your hat back?” Keith called over the whipping wind and the whooping of everyone diving in and out of the comet tail.

“I’m sure!” Lance replied. “Have you gone in the tail yet?”

Keith shook his head, and Lance asked if Keith had ever gone inside a comet before, to which Keith still answered no. Appalled, Lance urged Keith to follow him in, and follow him he did, straight down into the tail of the comet. If he hadn’t been so bundled up, Keith was certain that the prickling of ice would be incredibly painful. As it was, it all thumped harmlessly against his outer layers, and Keith was able to appreciate the beauty of the interior of the comet. It had a light all its own, though before the fall, Keith was certain, comets reflected the light of the sun just like anything else. Nearby, Lance practically danced in the air, inching ever closer to the body of the comet. He seemed to be reaching, but for what Keith couldn’t tell, until he’d grabbed hold of whatever it was, whirled around and hurled it right at Keith.

Keith liked to think that if he hadn’t been caught unawares he would’ve been able to dodge the snowball, but Lance had hit him dead center—Keith was certain that it hadn’t just been luck. Naturally, having been so attacked, Keith had no choice but to follow suit and retaliate. It was a bit more difficult than it looked, as the winds became exponentially stronger the closer he got to the body of the comet, but he managed to grab a fistful of snow and throw it in Lance’s direction. He wasn’t nearly as good a shot as Lance, but he did manage to catch him on the shoulder.

They ducked in and out of the tail, intermittently pelting each other with snowballs and very nearly convincing everyone else to start doing the same. Alas, they were on the clock, and they had work to do. Keith fixed his altitude mask securely to his face, and waved at Lance as he careened upwards, while Lance and his team sailed down, their investigations apparently taking them along the coast.

If Keith hadn’t already been flying, he might’ve thought he felt lighter than air.

The stars they had to replace that day took them out over the ocean, not so far that they couldn’t see the coast, but far enough that, were it not for the comet trailing almost directly underneath them, they would hardly be able to distinguish sky from sea. Save for the comet becoming an impromptu playground for the workers, it was shaping up to be another ordinary day for Keith.

Until it wasn’t.

Romelle had noticed first that something was off, being the odd one out this time as Allura held a star for Keith to stitch into place. She called out to them as soon as Keith had snipped the celestial thread, pointing out that snow was drifting all the way up to them. It wasn’t falling—rather, it was being blown all the way up from the comet, and then drifting idly back down. Below them, the comet did not so much resemble a comet anymore, looking more like a puffed up cloud of cosmic dust. Some sort of disturbance in the air currents? None of them knew if a storm was nearby, but all three doubted it—given their rarity, it was highly unlikely that a storm could approach without them knowing well in advance.

Still, it wasn’t directly affecting them just yet, so, curious as they were, they had to ignore it and get back to work. For the next star, Romelle held while Allura stitched, leaving Keith at his leisure to keep an eye on the icy storm. He’d never seen anything like it, and it didn’t sit well with him. Something in his gut told him something was afoot, but as there was nothing to suggest that something sinister was underway, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

They were just about to move on to the next star, when a distinct and dread inducing rumble rolled through the air. Allura and Romelle glanced nervously at each other, then at Keith. At present, Keith was torn—he wanted more than anything to go after her, to demand the answers that no one at the Bureau seemed keen on sharing. At the same time, he was all too conscious of the promise he’d made Lance, and while he wasn’t alone, he was certain Lance wouldn’t thank him from dragging his best friend and her girlfriend into this mess.

A crack of lightning dashed through the cloud of ice and snow.

“We need to go,” Keith finally decided. “Page some keepers, but keep your distance, as long as we’re not spotted we should be—“

The instructions were lost as an arc of lightning split the air far too close to Keith. He must’ve dropped a few hundred feet in his disorientation, for when his vision cleared he was much closer to the storm than he’d been before. His ears were ringing—if Allura and Romelle were calling for him, he couldn’t hear. He looked around, and found them darting down to regroup with him, but just before they could, another bolt of lightning shot out at them, intent on keeping them separate.

Keith waved at the other two in what he hoped was a semi-coherent manner, indicating that they should make it around the storm and regroup then. Allura and Romelle seemed to understand, and began veering wide around the storm, only to be corralled by more lightning. Keith scowled. What exactly did Terrell want from them? Keith found his patience dwindling all too quickly.

 

With Allura and Romelle too far to stop him, Keith dove headfirst into the storm cloud, earlier cautions be damned. The comet winds, which earlier had been strong but predictable, were now out of control, tossing Keith every which way. It was nearly impossible for him to stay on course, and were he not so impossibly stubborn, he might’ve immediately flown back out and approached from a different angle. Indeed, even now, with the ice and snow practically blinding him, Keith was considering flying out.

“Hey! There you are!” A condescending voice called out, somehow clear through the howling winds. “It’s about time I’ve found you!”

Keith looked around, unable to see Terrell through the storm. “What do you want?!”

One moment she was nowhere to be found, and the next moment Terrell was upon him, fist sparking dangerously. Her face was obscured by a heavy scarf and goggles, but Keith got the sense she was smirking wickedly.

“For you to stay out of my way!” she shouted, swinging her fist straight at Keith’s face.

Keith’s hair stood up on end as he managed to roll out of the way. He barely had time to recover before Terrell was on him again, fast and deadly as ever. Keith let himself drop through the storm, and tried to shoot up towards Terrell to knock her off balance, but a fierce gale swept him to the side, so that he flew up just behind her. The wind hardly seemed to affect her—she sliced through it easily in her pursuit of Keith.

Keith knew he wouldn’t be able to keep dodging her. She was wicked fast and not as affected as he was by the storm swirling around them. He had to buy himself some time, either to escape and page some keepers, or for keepers to arrive, if Allura or Romelle had paged them already. 

“What were you trying to do at the Bureau?!” he tried as he narrowly dodged another streak of lightning.

“As if you don’t know!” she spat, growing increasingly impatient with him. “Will you stay still for a second?!”

“If I knew I wouldn’t be asking!” Keith insisted, desperate for even a few seconds to breathe.

Finally--thankfully--Terrell paused. “You really don’t know?”

“Know what?” Keith huffed. Around them, the shrieking winds calmed slightly.

Only a second later, the winds swelled again, and electricity crackled all around them, setting all of Keith’s nerves alight.

“It doesn’t matter!” Terrell shrieked as she charged at him again.

Keith could hardly keep his grip on his broom, it seemed like Terrell would actually blast him out of the sky. Keith braced himself, wind and lightning roaring in his ears. He closed his eyes in anticipation of the impending impact—but none came. Instead Terrell shouted again, sounding even more frustrated than before. Keith opened his eyes. Allura and Romelle had entered the fray, having apparently saved Keith from a certain doom.

“Exactly how many of you has the Bureau found already?!” Terrell demanded.

Keith snarled, quite done with these cryptic questions. “What the hell are you talking about?!”

“Quit playing dumb!” She screamed, whipping lightning haphazardly all around her.

Romelle, Allura, and Keith scrambled to avoid it. This wasn’t at all productive. There was no way they were taking her down, not mid-air anyways. Trying to wait for backup was far too risky, especially as Terrell became increasingly agitated. Like a cornered animal, she was becoming more ferocious, less predictable, and at that she’d never been predictable in the first place. This was a battle they couldn’t win.

“Romelle, Allura! We have to go!” Keith finally decided.

But try as they might, Terrell was intent that they shouldn’t leave now that they’d entered. Or at least, if they did leave, it shouldn’t be alive. Keith hoped a squad of keepers arrived soon.

Backup did indeed arrive, but not in the form of keepers, but rather the team from the solar task force that they’d encountered earlier, the one Lance was a part of. Sure enough, Lance came up from below, slicing through the winds as speedily as if he were apart of them, sending Terrell careening through the air.

Terrell was surrounded.

Several people were shouting, but Terrell didn’t pay them any heed. The tumbling winds reached a fever pitch. Keith found himself very nearly sliding right off his broom. They either had to subdue her, and get her to the ground, or get out of here, and the longer they lingered in the storm, the more Keith felt like it should be the latter. 

Terrell charged again, this time towards Romelle. Allura intervened, crashing into Terrell’s side and nearly sending them both plummeting to the ocean below. Thunder crashed so loudly Keith couldn’t hear anything else. There were spots in his vision—the lightning was a constant now, caging them all in. Keith thought he saw Lance shouting at him, but he couldn’t hear. It looked as though he was suggesting they charge her all at once—risky, but perhaps their best shot at taking her down.

Only before they could do anything, the lightning around them was drawn towards Terrell, threatening and snapping around her fist. Too late Keith realized what was happening, the danger that Allura was in. Allura herself was trying to right herself amidst the wind after her brief tussle with Terrell, hardly aware of the danger she was in. Terrell drew her fist back, ready to strike.

Keith darted towards her, thinking that even if he couldn’t prevent her from striking, he could at least knock her aim off. But there was no way he was reaching her in time. He felt himself screaming at Allura to get out of the way. Realization lit up her eyes as Terrell shot her fist forward, but by then it was too late. Lightning split through the air, blinding and overwhelming all of Keith’s senses. 

When his vision cleared, time, it seemed, had slowed to a near standstill. Suspended in the air, fresh from the impact of the lightning, was not Allura, but Lance. Distantly Keith thought he must’ve put himself in the way of the attack, because of course he would, for his dearest friend, for anyone he cared about. In the fading light of the lightning, Keith could clearly see the stunned expression on Lance’s face. He felt himself shouting, but couldn’t hear what he was saying. But it didn’t matter, not as time seemed to remember itself and resume it’s normal course.

For then, Lance began to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...........:'D  
>  If y'all wanna yell at me find me @stories-in-the-stars on tumblr.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here! Thanks for your patience with this one y'all, that cliffhanger can't have been easy to live with for two weeks. Now you finally get to see what happened! I've updated the tags once again. Enjoy~!

Where one moment everything seemed to be at a standstill, the next, everything was moving far too fast.

 

Allura scrambled to grab Lance as he plummeted, but he slipped right through her fingers. Terrell charged with a wild cry, preventing Allura from following Lance down. Chaos erupted, but Keith paid it no heed. Already he was in a nosedive following Lance. The wind shrieked past him, drowning out his desperate thoughts. Lance was fine, he had to be fine, Keith refused to believe anything else, but the ocean loomed large and dangerous under them. If Keith didn’t catch him in time…

 

Keith leaned low over his broom, picking up as much speed as he could. He reached out with one straining hand, barely brushing Lance. He needed to get closer, he needed to be faster. It was a race against gravity—losing was not an option. He reached again, still falling short. His throat felt raw, and he was certain he was screaming, but he couldn’t hear himself. As it was, Lance made no response. He was just unconscious, that was all, Keith assured himself. He was fine, he had to be fine.

 

Unthinkingly, Keith reached with both hands, hanging onto the broom with just his legs. He was practically free-falling now, but it didn’t matter, not so long as he could catch Lance. Finally, Keith managed to grab onto the front of Lance’s coat, pulling him close and holding him tight. He fumbled with the broom that was still held loosely between his legs, ready to immediately pull up just before they hit the water—

 

Suddenly, Keith couldn’t breathe. That was the first thing he was aware of. He couldn’t breathe and it burned. Vaguely he was aware that Lance was still in his arms, motionless and heavy. All of Keith’s nerves were screaming, and his first thought was that he’d been struck by lightning, what with how everything in his body seemed to be seizing up. He couldn’t breathe, he was choking, and he was starting to panic—why couldn’t he breathe?! If he couldn’t breathe, what about Lance? And where was his broom?

 

It wasn’t until the broke the surface of the water that Keith realized—he hadn’t been quick enough.

 

“Lance!” He coughed, the burn of cold and salt nearly overwhelming him. He ripped off his altitude mask, where the brine had collected in the short time they’d been submerged. “Lance!”

 

But Lance didn’t reply. Only sagged against Keith as Keith struggled to keep them both afloat. The comet above was still a veritable blizzard, the winds kicking up salty spray into Keith’s eyes. There was no telling which way the shore was, not like this. The cold was so fierce as to be painful—Keith doubted he would be able to keep them above the surface for long, but he had to. He had to.

 

He gave Lance a slight shake. “Lance?!” He pleaded. “Please, tell me you’re okay!”

 

Still there was no response. Keith started kicking, only able to guess which way land was. If anything else, he only had to hold out until someone could break away from the conflict overhead. At the very least, there was no more lightning to speak of. That, if nothing else, gave Keith some hope. He would swim them to shore if he had to, he told himself sternly. But he hoped he didn’t have to. Everything stung, he could hardly keep his eyes open, and already he was shivering violently. If he was going to get them to land, he had to do it quickly.

 

Suddenly the water around them swelled, pitching them forward violently. Keith swallowed more salt water, coughing and sputtering and trying his damnedest to keep Lance’s head above the water. Above, he heard someone calling to him, and looked up to see Allura, her long silver-white hair having come undone in the chaos and becoming a beacon in the blizzard. Romelle followed shortly, her hair similarly undone. The water sloshed over Keith’s head again, and he held Lance up as best as he could. Allura reached down and, with Romelle’s help, hoisted Lance’s terrifyingly limp form up onto her broom. Thinking quick, she used her scarf to secure Lance to her, while Romelle helped Keith out of the water.

 

The air, Keith thought, was worse than the water. Ice flooded his veins, making him colder than he could ever remember being before, and Keith couldn’t help but cling to Romelle. All the while his eyes were glued to Lance, still motionless, still quiet. Maybe it was the violent shivers, but the sight made Keith’s gut clench painfully, like he might throw up. He kept his head tilted away from Romelle, just in case he did.

 

A powerful gale hit them just as they reached shore, turning their touchdown into a tumble. Keith wasn’t even fully recovered before he was scrambling towards Lance. Allura had untied him from her, and had ripped off her gloves and his scarf, shaking all the while. She felt along his neck, expression taut. Keith had just dropped to his knees at Lance’s other side when Allura pulled away—her cry pierced through the winds, even as she curled in on herself. Even then, Keith refused to believe it.

 

“Lance,” he felt himself mutter, teeth still chattering. “No, no, no, please, Lance…”

 

He pulled off his gloves, and tilted Lance’s face towards him, his thumb caressing Lance’s icy cold cheek. Any moment now, Lance’s eyes would flutter open, and he would crack some joke or other, something that would make Keith roll his eyes. Keith would probably punch Lance’s arm for making him worry—he would, he told himself, because Lance would wake up, he was okay, he had to be.

 

But then his fingers trailed down to Lance’s neck, just under his jaw, and pressed gently. Keith lingered there, hoping, wishing—but there was nothing. Nothing but cold and quiet. Even then, Keith refused to believe it. Surely Lance wasn’t dead? He couldn’t be, he was just—just injured, badly so. Keith scrambled for his pager, only to find that it was gone. But Lance needed medical attention, and he needed it now. If they couldn’t get help to come to them—

 

Gasping sharply, Keith yanked on the cord that had so long hung around his neck, his heart jumping painfully. His hands were shaking so badly he could hardly uncork the glass flask, and he was just about ready to break it when it came open with a resounding pop. He tipped the dim little star into his quaking hand, his wish already echoing in his head. The tiny star flickered slightly—some people thought the wish-making power of a star corresponded with its brightness, but Keith was of the opinion that it depended on the resolve of the wish maker. The more a person wanted something, the better they vividly imagined it in their mind, the more likely it was to come within their grasp. A wish required a desperate and unshakeable want.

 

And right now, Keith wanted nothing more than for Lance to be okay.

 

He took Lance’s listless hand in his, grasping the star tightly between their palms. Keith could feel the tiny pinprick of heat searing into his skin, but he could hardly bring himself to care. It didn’t matter.

 

“Keith…” he heard Allura call out weakly. He ignored her. “Keith, please, it’s not going to—“

 

“It has to!” Keith snapped, voice cracking. “It has to work, he has to be okay!”

 

But nothing happened. No miraculous swirl of magic, no celestial glow enveloping Lance’s body, not even an unexpectedly gentle breeze breathing life into his too-still form. Nothing but the storm that continued to rage around them, and eyes that didn’t open. Keith let Lance’s hand fall out of his, along with a useless wish. The roar of the winds turned to static in Keith’s head. The static spread throughout his body, to his fingers and toes until it had completely taken hold of him. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t even cry, even as a knot twisted itself in his throat, burning like bile and salt and cold, until he could hardly even breathe.

 

It wasn’t until the conflict in the air crashed to the ground that Keith was even remotely snapped out of his stupor. Terrell had ceased flinging lightning around, but was somehow no easier to wrangle, even so desperately outnumbered. She didn’t stay that way, however, as snatchers descended out of the shadows and onto the Bureau workers. The chaos doubled then, even with only one snatcher for every two Bureau workers still in the fray. Terrell stumbled out of the mess, kicking up sand in the eyes of anyone who got in her way, while her eyes remained trained on the huddle around Lance’s lifeless form.

 

Her eyes met Keith’s, and it was as though something visceral in him snapped.

 

Terrell was very deliberately walking towards them, as if she wasn’t satisfied with what she’d already done. What she planned on doing, Keith didn’t know, and he didn’t care. In an instant he was on his feet. His blood was boiling, stomach churning--Keith was positively nauseous with fury.

 

“Stay out of my way,” Terrell commanded without any remorse.

 

“No,” Keith hissed, though Terrell was not likely able to hear him over the bedlam behind her.

 

“Get out of my way!” Terrell repeated. She raised her clenched fists. A warning--a threat.

 

Keith wouldn’t stand for it. 

 

“No!” he spat like vitriol from his tongue, a harsh ringing in his ears growing steadily louder.

 

Terrell stumbled then, Keith’s defiance like a physical blow. Or, more likely, she had sustained some unseen injury, and was only now feeling it. Still she pressed forward.

 

“Stay back!” Keith commanded. His blood went from fiery hot to icy cold, and his clenched fists were shaking. The very last semblance of control was ready to tip over the edge at the slightest provocation. He wanted her to try, to give him a reason, even the smallest one…

 

Terrell doubled over suddenly, her face shining and pale even through the dark. Keith stepped towards her, the ringing in his ears nearly to the point of being dizzying. He remained upright, if only out of sheer spite. More than spite--a whole myriad of emotions that Keith couldn’t be bothered to pick apart, that would probably break him if he tried. Terrell meanwhile regarded him silently, as though for the first time considering that she might not be as all-powerful as she liked to believe. She took only one more hesitant step towards him, to which Keith responded with two steps towards her. He was ready for her.

 

And then she turned and ran.

 

It wasn’t the first time she’d run, not by a long shot. But rather then let her, as he had before, Keith took off after her, roughly grabbing someone’s broom as he did. Terrell shouted at the other snatchers to make a hasty retreat, even as the Bureau workers scrambled to stop them from doing so. A quick crackle of electricity, however, and all the snatchers were able to easily slip out of the grasp of their would be captors. Keith would not be so easily deterred. He took off just after the snatchers, deaf to all the protests that rapidly faded behind him, in spite of the arcs of lightning that he only barely managed to avoid. Terrell was going to pay for this, and Keith would see to it personally.

 

He was hot on Terrell’s tail, and she knew it. She gestured for the others to deal with him, as if he wasn’t even worth her time. Keith gripped the handle of his borrowed broom so hard he was sure to leave imprints in the wood. His fury propelled him to greater speeds--Terrell’s lackeys couldn’t lay a finger on him, try as they might. One got close, but recoiled with only a look from Keith--apparently these snatchers were just as cowardly as their boss.

 

The longer Keith pursued Terrell the closer he got to actually catching her. Her snatchers quickly gave up on actually catching him, allowing him to focus solely on Terrell. It didn’t take long for her to notice the failure of the other snatchers. She glared at Keith over her shoulder, and before he could react, she took a sharp dive into a dark forest. Keith followed her without hesitation. Did she really think a little darkness could scare Keith away?

 

Branches scratched and grabbed at Keith as he followed Terrell down, but he hardly flinched. He spurred himself to go faster, to reach a little farther. Terrell was a good flier, but Keith knew he was better. Several times he saw her nearly crash into a tree or get clotheslined by a low hanging branch--or perhaps she was trying to trick Keith into doing just that. It didn’t matter, especially not as Keith got close enough to reach out and grab the end of her broom.

 

He yanked as hard as he could, the movement flipping Terrell back and tumbling through the air right into Keith. They dropped a few feet to the ground, and Keith felt his wrist twist painfully, but he ignored it in favor of grappling with Terrell. Even now she was trying to get away, coward that she was.

 

“Get off of me!” she demanded, flinging out a fist that caught Keith right in the nose.

 

“No!” Keith shrieked as he slammed her to the ground.

 

He heard the air whoosh out of her in a strangled gasp, and her struggling lessened considerably, but not completely. Keith wasted no time in dropping a knee on her chest and using his uninjured hand to pin her hands down.

 

“So--what now?” Terrell wheezed, hardly able to breathe. “You--going--going to--kill me?”

 

“I should,” Keith answered, pressing his knee even harder down. Terrell gasped sharply.

 

Even through the darkness he could make out her expression as it twisted into a sadistic grin. “You won’t.”

 

Keith had only to remember the feeling of Lance in his arms, limp as a ragdoll, as he’d dragged him up through the ocean waters, and suddenly a feeling like acid rose up from his chest. His thoughts were scrambled, overlapping each other until they were screaming together, a cacophony of chaos that rattled in his head. The look on Lance’s face when he’d been struck, the way his eyes remained closed, how heavy his hand had felt in Keith’s--if there was a part of Keith that truly didn’t want to kill Terrell in that moment, he couldn’t hear it.

 

Terrell’s chest heaved under his weight, finally managing to gulp down a lungful of air.

 

“Alright, okay, you’re serious—“ Terrell coughed, grimacing as though in pain. “So let me let you in on a little secret.”

 

Keith applied more pressure. “Bit too late for that, don’t you think?”

 

“Not at all. Unless you really think your friend is dead,” Terrell said.

 

Caught off guard—because really, was she so desperate as to make such a bold-faced lie?—Keith made the mistake of loosening his grip. With a mighty heave, she wrenched her wrists free of Keith’s grip and blasted him with enough lightning to toss him into a tree several feet away. It wasn’t enough to completely knock him out, but it was a close thing. His vision swam in front of him as he staggered to his feet. Terrell, meanwhile, had not made her escape yet, and Keith could only think of one reason why she might do that.

 

“Going to kill me too?” he huffed. He wanted to see her try.

 

“I told you already, your friend isn’t dead,” Terrell repeated.

 

“Quit acting like I wasn’t there,” Keith spat. “Even if your lightning didn’t kill him the fall definitely did. Either way, it’s your fault.”

 

“So then why aren’t you dead?” she challenged.

 

Keith paused. “What?”

 

“If it wasn’t my lightning that supposedly killed him, but the fall… As far as I could tell, you were going about the same speed as he was, practically in a free fall right next to him—why are you alive?” Terrell asked slowly.

 

“I—I wasn’t—“

 

“You’re so eager to blame me, but you don’t even have all the facts.”

 

“Because you won’t tell me!”

 

“And the Bureau will?!”

 

“At least the Bureau isn’t trying to kill us!”

 

“And what makes you so certain of that?” Terrell asked in a low voice. “First the Bureau doesn’t tell you everything—not so suspicious, right? Organizations like that, of course they’re going to have some secrets. But then they keep things from you that could get people killed—I don’t think you’re that stupid that you’re not at least suspicious of them. I mean, come on, I think you know by now what I’m capable of, even if you don’t know the full scope of it. Why wouldn’t the Bureau at least warn their workers to not engage unless specifically tasked to do so? You really think they trust all of their workers to have common sense?”

 

She had taken to pacing around him like some feral animal, her silhouette disappearing and appearing through the trees. She was just trying to buy herself time, trying to throw Keith off. Half of him wanted to let her talk, to see what he could glean from her. The other half screamed to not trust a word she said, to charge after her and silence her for good. But the longer he deliberated the more hesitant he felt. He wanted nothing more than to squash his hesitation. He couldn’t shake the sensation of Lance’s icy skin under his fingertips. Perhaps the Bureau was to blame, but Terrell was to blame too regardless of whatever lies that fell from her mouth.

 

“Then again,” Terrell drawled. “It looks like there’s a lot that the Bureau doesn’t know either.”

 

“What—what do you mean?”

 

Terrell shrugged. “I have no doubt they’ll figure it out sooner or later, and then it’ll really be good-bye for your friend—and for you too, although I suppose if you really wanted to, you could run and hide.”

 

Rage rose up unbidden once more, and Keith made to charge towards her with the intent of getting his hands around her throat and—Keith had hardly taken a few steps towards her when Terrell dropped to her knees, sounding as though she was choking. Was it a ruse? It had to be a lie, right? A distraction—Terrell couldn’t be trusted.

 

She rose to her feet once more, leaning against a sturdy tree for support. “You’re a bit more formidable than I would’ve expected.”

 

Keith gritted his teeth. “Will you quit talking like I know what you mean?”

 

“I’m surprised you still don’t. I thought I’ve been pretty obvious,” Terrell said as airily as she could as she tried to breathe normally again.

 

“I’m going to give you one last chance to say what you mean,” Keith threatened as he advanced on her once more.

 

Terrell grinned as she massaged her neck. “What kind of learning opportunity would that be?”

 

She scrambled back as Keith marched towards her, hand held up as a weak deterrent.

 

“Tell me, honestly,” she started. “You get sick frequently, don’t you?”

 

That stopped Keith dead in his tracks.

 

Terrell didn’t squander her chance. “You get injured easily, and take forever to heal—You don’t mind the cold as much as other people—“

 

“Stop it, none of that means anything,” Keith interrupted.

 

“On the contrary, it all means everything,” Terrell insisted. “You can see and move through the dark like it’s no problem, even move through the shadows—I saw you do it at the Bureau, you’re doing it now.”

 

“That’s not—you’re wasting my time!”

 

“More importantly, misfortune follows you. You’re an orphan, aren’t you?”

 

“That’s—“

 

“People close to you suffer—“

 

“Shut up—!”

 

“Particularly that friend of yours I say I killed.”

 

“Leave him out of this!” Keith shouted. She was just messing with him, just trying to get him to back off.

 

But then why wasn’t she even trying to run?

 

“Your luck is completely opposite around him, isn’t it? And he seems to have your luck when your around?” Terrell suggested. “What’s more, you’re drawn to him, aren’t you? Whether you like it or not you’re pulled towards him--ever wonder why that is?”

 

“That’s enough,” Keith said in a low voice. “That’s enough out of you.”

 

Terrell shrugged. “If you say so.”

 

Her speed returned to her forthwith, and with a precise swing of her arm, she sent an arc of lightning streaking towards Keith. He only barely avoided it, the lightning striking instead a dried out tree behind him. It promptly caught fire, casting sharp shadows among the trees. Ignoring the blaze behind him, Keith took off after Terrell, who had finally chosen to make her escape. She tossed lightning over her shoulder indiscriminately, not even caring to hit Keith, only to slow him down. Her attacks landed on trees and underbrush, expanding the wildfire without care.

 

It was only the misfortune of a misstep, one crooked root, that sent Keith sprawling and unable to continue his pursuit. His fury mounted again, this time prickling behind his eyes and throttling his airway. He tried to stand, only to find that his ankle wouldn’t support his weight. He dropped to the ground again, every injury and bruise and scrape making itself known at once.

 

“Get back here!” he screamed. “Get back here and fight, you coward!”

 

Keith continued to scream after her even after she was long gone, he screams turning into violent coughing fits as the fire around him grew. Part him wanted to escape, to get out before he was burned or suffocated—the rest of him said that he had already been burned. Burnt to a crisp, and the rest of him snuffed out not so long ago. There was nothing left, Keith thought as he clawed at his chest, keeled over with tears streaming down his face. Nothing left at all to feed any fire whatsoever.

 

He only realized he had lost consciousness when he began to dream. It was a hazy dream, bleeding into reality at times and placing him in a strange sort of in-between place. The shadows were filled with stars, and among them Keith thought he could see, not those wandering lights that had accompanied all these long years, but people. It occurred to him for the first time that perhaps he wasn’t the only one who dreamed of starry skies, but then, he realized, how was that at all relevant to him?

 

Once or twice he thought he saw Lance, holding the starlit flask that had been Keith’s constant companion for so long, but that too, he knew, was only a dream. He wished he could dream of something else. And indeed, eventually the shadows overcame the flames, plunging Keith into a lonely darkness. Or, almost lonely, anyways.

 

“Do you get it now?” Terrell’s voice echoed through the vast emptiness.

 

She stood a ways away, arms crossed and looking smug as ever. Keith made to attack, moving forward, but found himself quite stuck. Terrell looked even more arrogant than before.

 

“You don’t. That’s alright, you’ve always been the slowest, out of all of us,” she said lightly, turning and walking to the side. Keith tried to follow, but his feet were bound to that path that he had so apathetically followed for all these years. For the first time, Keith resented it.

 

Before Keith could demand anymore answers out of her, she vanished, and in her place was a pale orange light that followed the very path Terrell had been treading. Keith could do nothing but follow his own path as he always had, alone and colder than ever.

 

He stayed there for longer than he had ever been, or at least long enough that he became impatient with it. It was all he could do. Several times he regarded the wandering lights ahead of him, particularly the large, orange one that had taken Terrell’s place. Would she return? How had she managed to be here in the first place? No one had ever appeared in these dreams of his before, save for—

 

Keith shook his head. He didn’t want to think of that, not now. Unfortunately, there was little to divert him here. He cast his gaze towards the brightest point of light, which moved but little. Sometimes, when his path brought him ever so slightly closer, he could imagine that he could feel its warmth upon his face. He couldn’t feel it now, but, oh, did he so desperately wish he could. 

 

So engaged was he in his observation of that so distant light, that he didn’t notice when Terrell return. He only noticed when she stepped directly between him and the light, looking between him and it with keen interest.

 

“Who would’ve thought…” she mused with a wicked grin. “Most stories talk of the sun and moon—“

 

“Go away,” Keith said weakly.

 

“But you and the sun, huh?” Terrell continued anyways.

 

“I don’t have the sun,” Keith told her.

 

“Don’t you?” Terrell mused. “Well, as it is, it seems he has you, in your entirety.”

 

Keith took pause at that. “...he?”

 

Before he could press her for more, the darkness melted away, overtaken by a headache-inducing fluorescence. And it wasn’t just his head that hurt—his entire body ached, more so with even the slightest movement. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, unable to shut out any of the pain, or indeed all of the artificial light. His head felt scrambled, scarcely able to tell where he was or how he got there. Slowly, he came to be aware of a low hum of activity just outside the room he was in. Next to him, a steady beeping.

 

He was in the hospital. He was alive. And Lance…

 

Keith turned his face into the crisp, sterile pillow, the pain the movement caused him nothing compared to the one that seemed so freshly ripped into his chest now. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to fall into a dreamless sleep, where no pain could reach him. But he couldn’t do anything. Nothing but be weighed down into the stiff bed by a harsh, heavy reality.

 

He didn’t turn his head when the door opened. Whoever it was, he didn’t care. Keith gripped the sheets tightly (with only one hand, as one of his hands was bound in a heavy cast). He expected it was a nurse, maybe a doctor, come to check on him. Maybe even a Bureau worker, or one of his friends. Whoever it was, Keith didn’t want to talk to them. He didn’t want to answer any questions, or explain what had happened. He expected whoever it was to linger, maybe some fiddle with the machines he was hooked up to if it was one of the medical staff. The last thing he expected, of all things, was a tender touch, brushing the hair out of his face.

 

The hand recoiled when Keith jumped at the touch, but returned only a second later, gentle and warm against his cheek. Keith couldn’t help but to lean into the touch, and opened his eyes for all that only a moment earlier he’d been adamant in not doing so. When he saw who it was, were it not for the steady tick of the machine he was hooked up to, Keith would’ve sworn that his heart had stopped.

 

“Lance?” he choked.

 

And Lance, smiling so fondly and with such warmth that Keith felt his heart being torn to pieces at the mere sight.

 

“Hey,” Lance greeted in a soft voice.

 

There were so many things Keith wanted to say, so many questions to ask, but when he opened his mouth next, all that came out was a harsh sob. Lance looked at first alarmed, especially as tears began to spill hot and heavy from Keith’s eyes. He twined his fingers into Keith’s hair in a soothing manner, and gently draped himself over him in a clumsy sort of hug. Keith clung to him desperately, holding so tight as though hardly believing this real. This was real, right? Or had Keith died after all?

 

“Lance, are you—is this—“ Keith sputtered through shaky sobs.

 

“It’s alright, man, it’s okay,” Lance whispered. “I’m here, everything’s alright.”

 

“How?” Keith asked hoarsely.

 

“Beats me,” Lance answered so characteristically that Keith couldn’t help but give a watery smile. Lance flopped onto a chair next to Keith’s bed, dressed himself in thin, hospital clothing. “You sure gave us a scare though.”

 

“Me? I’m not the one that took a lightning bolt to the chest and then fell however many hundreds of feet to the ocean below--Lance, how are you alive?!” Keith repeated almost hysterically.

 

Lance patted Keith’s shoulder. “Whoa, calm down, breathe a little. Like I said, I have no idea how I managed to survive that--”

 

_ “Your friend isn’t dead,” _ Terrell’s voice echoed in Keith’s head. He stubbornly shoved it to the back of his head.

 

“--and no one else is really sure either. But you. You not only followed me down, but then you went and followed Terrell--by yourself, which you promised me you wouldn’t do--” Lance added pointedly.

 

“Well excuse me for thinking the person I’d promised that was dead,” Keith huffed, crossing his arms.

 

Lance frowned. “I would’ve hoped that would’ve made it that much more important to keep.”

 

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry!” Keith apologized. “I was upset, okay?”

 

Lance sighed, his hand still on Keith’s shoulder, his thumb drawing small circles there. “Okay, I’ll let you off this one time, just--just be more careful next time, yeah? We found you with a broken wrist and ankle, a few burns--of the fire and lightning variety--and we worried that you had suffocated on all the smoke in the middle of that wildfire you were in. The doctors told us you have inflammation in your upper airway, too.”

 

Well, that explained why everything seemed to be so painful.

 

“How did you even manage to find me?” Keith asked.

 

“It was actually thanks to you,” Lance started, grinning. He reached into his shirt, and what else should he pull out but the very star that Keith had abandoned? “After you left, I regained consciousness, and everyone was freaking out--I was a little confused, and Allura and Romelle were just glad I was alive, they thought I was dead too--”

 

“You didn’t have a pulse,” Keith interrupted.

 

Lance shrugged. “I guess you guys just couldn’t find it. Anyways, they told me what happened, and I asked where you were, and they said that you’d gone after Terrell--”

 

He paused briefly, and his voice lowered.

 

“No one followed you, and by the time they even thought to, you and Terrell were long gone. They sent for a backtracker, to get a fix on your pager, but it was going to take some time. I saw the star--your star--that you’d left behind, and I put it back in the flask, figuring that you might want it back, and… Well, honestly, the only thing I could think about was how much I wanted to find you. I don’t know how, or why, but I guess the star picked up on that--” 

 

Lance held the flask aloft by the cord, and gradually, as if drawn like a magnet, the star within gravitated towards Keith. “Allura wanted me to stay back and get looked at, I swear she was ready to knock me out to make it happen, but… I followed the star. And it led me to you.”

 

With that, Lance placed the flask gently on Keith’s chest, pressing it there with the palm of his hand. On instinct, Keith placed his good hand over Lance’s flattened one. Lance’s skin was warm under Keith’s, as it always was.

 

“Holy crow, you’re freezing!” Lance exclaimed, withdrawing his hand immediately. “Do you need more blankets? I can go get some--”

 

“No,” Keith quickly said. “Just--just stay with me for a little while longer? Please?”

 

“Of course,” Lance agreed in a soft voice.

 

_ “You’re drawn to him, aren’t you?” _ Terrell’s irritating voice returned.  _ “Ever wonder why that is?” _

 

Keith knew all too well why that was, regardless of what Terrell had been trying to get at. And after what had just happened, Keith was done living in denial.

 

“Lance,” he began, before he lost his nerve. “I--”

 

But he hesitated, and before he could push himself forward, the door of his room opened to reveal a nurse, harried and relieved--Lance, apparently, had not told anyone he was coming to visit Keith. Lance apologized profusely, but the nurse was cross enough as it was. She marched him right back to his room, telling him that he could visit later once the doctor had been in to see Keith--now that he was awake, he needed to be assessed. Over his shoulder, Lance promised Keith he’d be back as soon as he was allowed.

 

Keith received a slew of visitors over the next few hours--a doctor and several nurses, an investigator from the solar task force, Shiro (who could offer only a light scolding before hugging Keith tightly, grateful that he was okay), Romelle and Allura, and Hunk and Pidge--Lance meandered in while the others were all crammed into Keith’s room, reveling in his steady recovery. But while the others trickled out when visiting hours were ending, Lance remained, determined not to be left alone in a box of a hospital room. Thankfully, the night-shift nurses had a little mercy, and allowed him to visit Keith throughout the night, so long as he returned to his room for regular check ups.

 

Every time Lance left his room, Keith was certain it would be the last for the night. He was slipping in and out of consciousness thanks to the medications he was given, and he knew Lance had to be exhausted. Yet Lance returned to his side every time. They didn’t even talk most of the time. The television in the room that had been turned on hours ago was a low drone as Lance leaned on Keith’s bed from where he sat. Keith knew he ought to tell Lance to go sleep in his own bed--it was only a matter of time before they both slept--but he didn’t want Lance to leave his side, as much as it seemed Lance wanted to stay there.

 

_ “He has you, in your entirety,” _ Keith heard Terrell saying as clearly as though she were right beside him, causing him to jerk awake suddenly. 

 

There was no one in the room save for himself and Lance, who was snoring lightly, slumped over the side of Keith’s bed. Keith shook him lightly, urging him to go back to his own room. Lance, stubborn as ever, adamantly refused, and instead shoved Keith to the edge of the narrow bed so that Lance could crawl in beside him.

 

“You’re freezing,” Lance muttered as he threw an arm over Keith.

 

“I’m fine,” Keith assured him. “You should really sleep in your own bed.”

 

Lance refused. “Don’t want to leave you.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere.”

 

“‘S not what I said.”

 

Resigned, Keith let him be. Lance was like a heater in his own right, to the point where Keith almost felt too warm in spite of Lance’s insistence that he felt like ice. Again, Keith started to drift off, exhausted and in need of some decent sleep. Even in his own mind, however, it seemed Terrell was not ready to let him rest.

 

_ “You don’t mind the cold as much as others,” _ she had said, among other things.

 

Had she been watching them? She had to have been--how else would she know all those things about Keith? The only question was why? Why bother watching Keith so closely? And then claim he was in her way, of all things? Again, he found himself going in circles in his mind, until his head was throbbing. Beside him, Lance shuffled.

 

“What’s up?” Lance asked in a sleepy voice.

 

“Nothing,” Keith assured him. “Go back to sleep.”

 

“Nuh-uh, tell me,” Lance insisted.

 

Keith sighed. “Just… some stuff Terrell was saying. What happened between me and her. You’d think we’d have more answers by now, but all we have are more questions.”

 

“What sort of stuff did she say to you?”

 

“It was just stuff to buy herself time to get away--I’m not sure whether or not I’m glad or angry that she succeeded…” Keith trailed off.

 

“Why?” Lance prodded, when Keith remained silent.

 

Keith continued in a soft whisper, “Because… if she hadn’t, I might’ve actually killed her.”

 

He didn’t look at Lance when he said it. It wasn’t something he had planned on admitting, but he couldn’t seem to help himself around Lance. Or maybe it was all the pain relieving medications being pumped into him at astounding rates. Either way, it was out in the open now. He just hoped Lance didn’t think any differently of him now, knowing that Keith was capable of murderous intent.

 

“Well, ultimately it was your choice not to,” Lance finally said. “Anyways, what did she tell you?”

 

And just like that, they’d moved on. It was just like Lance, of course, but it still surprised Keith every time. How easily he decided that, Keith, in spite of all his flaws--his temper, his recklessness, his moody disposition--was ultimately a good person. It was a little jarring. Certainly Lance wasn’t the first person to decide to look past Keith’s flaws--Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk beat him to that a long time ago. But somehow, coming from a person like Lance--personable, fun-loving, outgoing, someone that was the complete opposite of Keith in every way--Keith could almost believe that it had been his own choice to spare Terrell and let her escape. Almost.

 

He spent the next twenty minutes explaining everything that Terrell had said to him, and what he thought it meant. Lance was attentive in spite of his fatigue. Several times Lance stifled a yawn, and Keith tried to get him to go back to sleep, but Lance was decided. He would not sleep until Keith did. He agreed with Keith in thinking that Terrell had likely been watching him for some time, and was thus as equally baffled as to why Terrell would say Keith was in her way. What sort of threat did Keith pose, that she had gone out of her way to take him out?

 

Keith even told Lance that Terrell had seemed confident that Lance hadn’t died, which he himself had not believed until he saw Lance alive and well with his own eyes. He did not, however, mention the strange dreams that involved Terrell, and the things she said there. After all, that was only nonsense conjured up in Keith’s mind. He hoped.

 

Lance groaned in frustration. “The more we deal with her the more annoying she gets.”

 

“Tell me about it,” Keith huffed, blowing a tuft of hair out of his face.

 

“We’ll figure it out,” Lance said with certainty, burrowing his face into the crook of Keith’s neck. “But first, sleep, okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, leaning his cheek against the top of Lance’s head.

 

This time around, Keith thought he could finally sleep peacefully, but something at the back of his mind persisted that he was just on the precipice of figuring everything out, that if he just turned it over in his head a bit longer he’d find the answers he’d been looking for all along. Eventually, between the low murmur of the hospital around him, and the reassuring warmth of Lance pressed against his side, exhaustion won out, and Keith fell into a deep sleep.

 

Even in his dreams, Keith could not find rest.

 

Lance’s dramatic near death played in his mind over and over again, each time with slight differences that set the dreams apart from reality (such as who had been nearest when Lance fell, how near or far the water was beneath them, where exactly the lightning had struck Lance). It was like a broken record, wringing Keith out emotionally until he wanted to scream. Some part of him knew that he needed only to wake up, that he would find Lance right by his side, safe and sound, and most importantly, alive. 

 

Taxing as the dream was, however, Keith couldn’t pull himself away. Logic told him that, by all accounts, Lance should be dead. He was grateful beyond belief that that wasn’t the case, but something pushed him to ask: why? How did Lance manage to defy all odds and survive? And why, of all people, had Terrell been the only one to be sure that that would be the case? What did she know that no one else did?

 

“A lot of things,” Terrell spoke through the dream suddenly.

 

Keith turned to scowl at her. “If you’re not going to tell me anything then go away.”

 

“Aw, that’s no fun,” Terrell mock pouted.

 

“Keith?” Lance’s voice suddenly called out, from that faraway light that Keith could never reach.

 

Keith’s gut twisted. It was just a dream, Terrell presented no threat, it was only a dream.

 

“Are you so sure of that?” Terrell taunted.

 

“Get out of my head!” Keith shouted, at once wanting to wake up and wanting to wring answers out of Terrell once and for all.

 

Lance called out to him again, too far for Keith to be able to reach out for him. He could only walk his path, as he always had. Never in one place for too long, but always around a fixed point.

 

“Fun fact,” Terrell continued, ignoring Keith’s demands and pointing towards the points of light that moved steadily around them. “The ancient Greeks had a word for the points of light that weren’t fixed in the sky like the stars.”

 

“I don’t care,” Keith insisted.

 

“In English, the word essentially means ‘wanderer’--care to guess what their word for it was?”

 

“Why are you even bothering?! It’s like you want me to know!” Keith huffed.

 

Terrell rolled her eyes. In the distance, Lance called out for Keith again, his tone worried, almost panicked. Keith glanced towards the light--it was just a dream, just a dream, nothing about this was real, he wasn’t in danger, neither of them were--

 

Terrell snorted. “And you said you don’t have him.”

 

“Leave him out of this,” Keith growled.

 

“Can’t,” Terrell said with a shrug. “It is quite impossible to leave him out of this, even if I wanted to. He’s not like you and I, you see. Which is why you shouldn’t be so foolish as to think you actually love him.”

 

Keith physically recoiled at that. “That’s none of your business!”

 

“I do one nice thing…” Terrell mused, seemingly to herself. She glanced at her wrist, at a watch she wore, completely apathetic to Keith’s frustration. “Whoops, looks like it’s time to go.”

 

“What--”

 

“Until next time, little wanderer,” she bid him.

 

Keith awoke again with a start, breathing hard. Lance was no longer by his side, no doubt dragged away by a long suffering nurse. These dreams were getting out of hand, he decided. He would have to ask the doctor about medication for a dreamless sleep, if such a thing even existed. To have several such dreams within the last two days… It had never happened to him before. Part of him told him it was because they weren’t dreams at all, that Terrell was somehow speaking to him in his sleep--the rest of him adamantly refused to believe that Terrell had the power to toy with him even in his dreams. 

 

Some time later, after a shift change in the medical staff, Keith had a visitor that wasn’t Lance--Pidge. She looked about as exhausted as he felt, defined bags under her eyes and her short hair unkempt. Unlike the day before, she was alone. 

 

“What’s up?” he asked when she seated herself without a word. “Are you alright?”

 

Pidge waved her hand dismissively. “I’m fine, just a little tired.”

 

Keith’s concern only grew. “Is something wrong?”

 

“Hard to say,” Pidge began, voice lowered so it was barely audible above the steady hum of the machines in the room. “I dug up more info on Terrell. I’d like to say it would’ve helped to avoid--all this--but frankly I just don’t know what it means. Or rather, I do, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

 

Keith pressed his lips together in a thin line. He wanted her to get on with it already, but she looked harried enough as it was. She leaned in close.

 

“Terrell was assigned to the planetary task force in charge of searching for Jupiter. And not as a regular worker either,” she whispered. “But as the object of their search.”

 

Keith couldn’t even comprehend it at first. “What on earth…?”

 

“I figured it must’ve been Jupiter she went to, given her command over lightning--”

 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Keith interrupted.

 

“Keith,” Pidge said seriously. “Jupiter was the god of thunder and lightning in Roman myth, lord of the skies.”

 

“So--what, she found Jupiter and--can people even make wishes on planets?”

 

“I don’t know, but what’s important is how the Bureau sees it,” Pidge replied.

 

“And how does the Bureau see it?”

 

“As far as the Bureau is concerned, Terrell is Jupiter,” she told him in such a low voice he had to strain to hear her.

 

Keith opened his mouth to insist that that was the most ridiculous thing, that it couldn’t possibly be true, when once again Terrell’s voice wormed its way into his head again, unbidden and unwelcome.

 

_ “The ancient Greeks had a word for the points of light that weren’t fixed in the sky like the stars.” _

 

“Pidge… where does the word ‘planet’ come from?” Keith asked abruptly. She gave him a look at that, concerned and confused. “Just entertain me, please.”

 

She huffed, sitting back in her chair. “From the Greek, ‘planetes’, which means ‘to wander’, essentially. I guess, in that context, it would make sense that the planets would take human forms, so as to continue wandering, but… What does that mean in regards to replacing them? More importantly, what does that mean for the sun? I mean, it’s not a planet, but still… Maybe that’s why it hasn’t been found yet. But why would the Bureau keep quiet about something like this… Still, I think the Bureau is just a little in over their heads with this one…”

 

Pidge continued rambling, while Keith felt like he was struggling to stay afloat in icy waters all over again. The realization came crashing down on him so fast that he could hardly comprehend it, much less listen to what Pidge was saying now. Because if Terrell was Jupiter, the actual personification of the planet itself, then everything she’d been saying, the thing she’d been hinting at all along--

 

Lance was the sun. And Keith was just another planet spinning around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. There it is. It's finally out in the open. Most of it anyways. What do y'all think? ;D


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! This chapter was emotionally exhausting to write. I hope it's not too much. You may have noticed that I've updated the chapter count, because at this point I'm reasonably certain that there will be no more than 12 chapters. It's possible it'll only take 11, but either way, if I keep going at this pace, this story will be done before the year is out (I really hope to finish it before season 8, but we'll see!). Exciting, right? Also I've updated the tags again.

Keith was still reeling long after Pidge left (which hadn’t been long after she’d relayed the newfound information to him--apparently he’d suddenly gone pale and clammy, and she decided he needed more rest immediately). He didn’t tell her his earth shattering realization. How did he even begin to explain? Oh, yeah, if Terrell is Jupiter, then obviously Lance is the sun! And that made Keith a planet too, of course--no, there was no way that would go well.

 

It made him feel like a stranger in his own skin. Obviously this was a human body, he’d been in and out of the hospital too often for anything unusual to have gone unnoticed by now. But to think that he wasn’t just another human… Keith’s stomach turned from the sheer shock of it. He still hadn’t even justified the idea to himself entirely, but he knew it was right. Between Terrell’s powers, the strange things that had been happening around him, the way he felt about Lance--

 

_ “You shouldn’t be so foolish as to think you actually love him.” _

 

Keith swallowed down a hard knot in his throat. Lance was the sun, of course he was. Even now, everything was slotting itself into place--Lance’s uncommonly good health, the fact that he hadn’t died where a normal human would’ve, his bright disposition, the way Keith was helplessly drawn to him. Indeed it explained a great many things, particularly when he thought about how they started out. It all made perfect sense. And Keith hated it.

 

He had been a fool. Painful as it was to admit, even if only to himself, he was not in love with Lance. Only drawn to him the way a planet ought to be. Tethered by gravity, unable to escape but neither able to get any closer than allowed by his place in the system. He almost began to wonder what, exactly, that place was, but his mind was a veritable mess. He could no more focus on any clues there might be to his own true identity than he could on any one thought that was swirling in his head at the moment.

 

So caught up was Keith in this maelstrom of an epiphany, that he didn’t notice Lance’s return until Lance was right next to him, all smiles and optimism.

 

“You okay?” Lance asked, startling Keith out of his thinking. This time he was acutely aware of how his headache almost instantly began to recede.

 

“Fine,” Keith muttered. “Just tired.”

 

Lance frowned. “I kept you up, didn’t I?”

 

“No, I just haven’t been able to sleep well, you know that.”

 

You’re the sun, Keith wanted to tell him. You’re the sun and I am not in love. But he held his tongue.

 

“Keith,” Lance started, placing his hand on Keith’s arm, just above the cast. Keith pulled away, and although Lance was visibly surprised, he didn’t mention it. “You can’t beat yourself up over what happened.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

 

Keith met Lance’s eyes. Lance was earnest as ever, his vivid blue eyes full of a sincere desire to help. Of course he would want to help. Of course he would be unfailingly kind in the face of another person’s struggle. If only he knew the real reason for Keith’s despair.

 

“Hey, Lance… can I ask you something?”

 

“You just did, but go on.”

 

Perhaps before, Keith might’ve smiled and rolled his eyes. Now, his face was drawn and impassive.

 

“If--if you could save the world, in exchange for your own life, would you do it?” Keith asked slowly.

 

Lance blinked, silent at first and stunned at such a strange and abrupt question. His forehead creased as he tilted his head in serious contemplation. Keith was glad for it--he was worried that Lance would crack some joke and brush it off like it was nothing. Though he didn’t know it, Lance’s answer was of the utmost importance to Keith.

 

“When you say save the world,” Lance said. “Do you mean like, introducing some revolutionary new thing that betters the lives of people across the globe or like--finding the sun type of save the world?”

 

Keith very nearly choked on his words as he answered, “Finding and replacing the sun.”

 

“And you’re asking, if I could make that happen, but I had to die to do it…” Lance trailed off, tapping a finger to his chin. “I think I’d do it, yeah.”

 

“Why?”

 

Lance raised his eyebrows. “Why not? There’s a lot of people on this planet, and the planet is dying. We need the sun, and if all it took was one person sacrificing themselves to save everyone else… I think that’s more than a fair trade-off.”

 

In spite of himself, Keith scowled. “What if it was someone else?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“What if someone else had to die to replace the sun? Would you still think it was okay?”

 

“Keith, what’s with these weird questions? Are you feeling alright? I mean aside from the obvious,” Lance said, effectively ignoring Keith’s questions.

 

“I’m fine!” Keith huffed. “I think--I just need to be alone for a while.”

 

“Yeah… yeah, that’s--you need to get some sleep. But I’m right next door if you need me, okay?”

 

Keith hummed, his eyes once more averted from Lance. Lance rose slowly from his seat, giving Keith a tentative pat on the shoulder before leaving. As soon as he did, Keith’s headache returned with a vengeance. Luckily a nurse arrived with fresh doses of medication, making it that much easier for Keith to finally, finally settle into a deep, dreamless sleep.

 

When he awoke, it was almost like nothing had changed. He was able to forget, if only for a moment, everything that had happened, everything he’d discovered. But reality was insistent. Keith had only just rubbed the sleep from his eyes when everything came crashing down over his head again. Lance was the sun, Terrell was Jupiter, and Keith--well, who knew what Keith was, but it apparently wasn’t human.

 

With a pronounced sigh, Keith turned to check the time--he’d slept for a solid two hours. If he was honest, he felt worse for it. His limbs felt heavy, and not very solid. The pain in his head was only a dull throb behind his eyes now, but present all the same. At the very least, the thoughts in his head were passing at such a pace that Keith felt, for the first time, he could actually keep up with them. Turn them over carefully, decide what they meant. If it even mattered.

 

The first thing he considered: Lance was the sun. Lance was the sun, and there was no way Keith was going to tell him. Lance had said it himself--if he had the opportunity to give himself up for the sake of the entire world, he would. And these were no empty words Lance was spouting either. This was, after all, the man that had put himself in the way of deadly lightning for a single person. What sort of dramatic (unnecessary) heroics would he be driven to for all the people in the world? Keith wouldn’t give Lance the chance to make that choice, not when it wasn’t even a question in Lance’s eyes.

 

Perhaps it was selfish. After all, the only other person in the entire world that knew the truth of Lance’s nature (as far as Keith knew) was Terrell. And as far as he could tell, she was even more selfish. She wanted the sun, Lance, for herself. For what end, Keith still had no clue, but he knew that much at least. Keith only wanted to save Lance from himself. Even if it cost him the world.

 

The second thing he considered: he was not in love with Lance. Several times Keith found himself trying to argue that maybe, maybe there was a possibility… But it hurt too much. Surely if he wasn’t really in love, it wouldn’t hurt so much to realize, right? And after all, he clearly cared about Lance, enough to put him over every single person on the planet. But it was all for naught. It was nothing but something akin to gravity. It was what drove Keith to keep Lance near when he wanted nothing more than to make him go away. It was exactly as Terrell had told him: he had been inexplicably drawn to Lance. It made Keith furious.

 

He hated feeling helpless, hated that he was fooled into thinking he felt a certain way when he really didn’t, hated that even now he felt driven to do just about anything for Lance, should the other man only ask. Most of all, he hated that Terrell had been right. Every single thing she said had a place in this answer, none of it even slightly contrary. She had been right--but she was still very much in the wrong.

 

The rest of his day was spent in quiet contemplation, punctuated by impersonal visits from doctors and nurses who told him he might have to spend another night in the hospital thanks to the damage to his upper airway caused by smoke inhalation. He was assured that once the doctors were confident he could breathe easy, without too much pain, he would be cleared to continue healing at home. He nodded along silently all the while, numb to their gentle confidence. A far cry from the fidgeting, restless patient he used to be.

 

Later that day, Lance visited him again. He was dressed, not in the thin gown of a hospital patient, but his own clothes, warm and cozy and ready to leave. Keith thought it was just as well. If Lance wasn’t just next door to him, he wouldn’t be visiting as often. If he wasn’t visiting as often, Keith wouldn’t have to look away from him as often. It would be better for both of them.

 

Lance seemed to sense that Keith was not in a good sort of way, because he didn’t reach out the way he had the last few visits. He bid Keith good health, and urged him to rest. He reminded him to not linger on what had happened, still thinking that Keith partially blamed himself for it. Keith, in turn, assured Lance that he did not blame himself in the slightest (after all, this was out of his control, out of anyone’s control; how could he be at fault for that?). With an air of reluctance, Lance left, and Keith was alone once more.

 

The next visitor he received was Hunk, who brought not only his reassuring company but also homemade food. Keith nearly cried--years of being in and out of the hospital made him averse to hospital food, which was often as dry and sterile as the air in his room. As such, Keith rarely ate whenever he was hospitalized, which often resulted in longer stays.

 

“How much longer do you think you’ll be here?” Hunk began, courteous as ever.

 

Keith shrugged. “Doctors say another day, at least, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were longer.”

 

“And how are you… doing?”

 

Keith raised an eyebrow, and glanced at the cast currently weight down his arm.

 

“I mean like--in your headspace. Physically I know you probably feel like garbage, but--well, Lance is worried. Not that he said anything or asked me to talk to you but… I can tell he’s worried. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something you weren’t saying to keep him from doing just that,” Hunk said, suddenly serious.

 

Keith nearly choked on his food. “No! Nothing--just! Going around in circles in my head, is all!”

 

Hunk leveled him with a scrutinizing gaze, under which Keith had to try very hard not recoil. Normally Hunk had a soothing presence about him, despite his tall and somewhat imposing figure. Now it almost felt like he intended to wrench the answer from Keith’s mouth with only a look, and what was more, Keith worried it might work.

 

“I’m serious, it’s nothing--”

 

“Keith,” Hunk interrupted in a tone that left no room for argument. “We’re your friends. You can rely on us once in a while, you know? Cause if we see you suffering all on your own it’s just awful. We don’t want that.”

 

The weight of the secret he carried suddenly manifested into a physical weight, bearing down on Keith’s shoulders in such a way that he was surprised his joints didn’t groan from the strain of it. He wanted to tell someone, someone he could trust, and who better than Hunk? Hunk was the most trustworthy person he knew, and always had solid advice when Keith was struggling--but could Keith really burden Hunk with this as well? Was that even fair?

 

On the other hand, was it fair for him to make his friends worry?

 

“Hunk, I--I can’t talk about it yet,” Keith finally said. “I’m sorry that everyone’s worrying, and trust me when I say that’s the last thing I want, but I really just--I need to figure this out first.”

 

“Why won’t you let us help you figure it out?” Hunk asked gently.

 

Keith pressed his lips together tightly. “I can’t.”

 

“Keith--”

 

“I just can’t!” Keith snapped. “So just drop it, okay?! Quit putting your nose in my business and go away!”

 

He regretted it as soon as the words left his lips, but there was no taking back the veritable vitriol that had fallen from his tongue. Hunk had recoiled visibly in his chair--if he noticed that it was a little darker in the room, he didn’t say anything. The tension building around Keith compounded onto the weight of his secrets. He felt tired, so horribly tired.

 

“Just leave, please,” Keith whispered. Of all people to snap at, it had to be someone that deserved it the least.

 

Hunk left without another word, and Keith flopped back into his bed, sick to his stomach and unable to eat the rest of the food that Hunk had so kindly brought for him. He pressed his hands into his aching eyes, willing himself to sleep again. But it wouldn’t come, not immediately anyways. He tossed and turned for some time, trying to justify to himself why he was keeping this secret, keeping it so fiercely as to drive himself to snapping at so gentle a person as Hunk.

 

It was to keep Lance safe, first of all. Maybe he wasn’t in love with Lance, but he knew that there were people that did. His family, his friends--if the Bureau found out that Lance was the sun, what would they do to him, in spite of all the people that held him dear? No, Lance was too precious, not as the sun, but as himself, to be so callously taken away. Keith couldn’t say anything, wouldn’t say anything, until he knew for certain that Lance would be okay.

 

“He won’t be.”

 

Keith growled in frustration, only now realizing that he must’ve fallen asleep.

 

“Why do you keep showing up here? More importantly, how?” Keith demanded, turning on Terrell impatiently.

 

“The answer to your first question: You’re the only one besides me who knows anything now,” Terrell answered, surprisingly straightforward. “Secondly, as far as I know this is some sort of dreamspace that the planets share. It seems to be stronger when we’re physically closer, or when we’re aware of our true nature.”

 

“And you couldn’t tell me straight out because…?”

 

Terrell grinned, arms crossed as she traipsed her set path. “No fun in that. Not to mention, your powers get stronger when you’re aware. Mine did. Yours will too. And you’re already in my way enough as it is.”

 

“Whatever,” Keith huffed, already fed up and tired enough as it was. He just wanted to sleep, really sleep. “What do you mean he won’t be okay?”

 

“It’s a lose-lose situation, for him at least,” Terrell began. “On the one hand, if the Bureau finds out what he really is, they’ll put him back in the sky, one way or another. He’ll cease to be the person he is now--he’ll just be the sun.”

 

“What make you so sure?” Keith asked. “I’ve been up replacing stars and I’ve been just fine.”

 

“True, but you’ve been up there with an altitude mask, and no one was trying to literally sew you into the sky.”

 

Keith felt a chill from the low tone of her words. 

 

“What makes you so sure?” he repeated.

 

“Because that’s what the Bureau tried to do to me,” she answered, rolling up the sleeve of her shirt to expose her forearm to him.

 

There were three small scars, arranged in a neat line down her arm. They were only just large enough to be noticeable. Between two of them, an unmistakable silver thread, like a shining tattoo on her flesh. Keith bit his lip to keep from gasping at the sight of it. Celestial thread was meant for celestial objects only, it didn’t bond to human skin. Or at least, it wasn’t supposed to.

 

“Whether or not it would’ve actually worked is a mystery,” Terrell continued flippantly, rolling her sleeve back down.

 

“What happened?” Keith found himself asking.

 

“Hard to sew something to the sky when it’s kicking and screaming. They didn’t send enough people--wanted to keep it quiet, you know,” Terrell explained. “They dropped me.”

 

First Keith’s eyes widened in genuine horror, and then he scowled. “Yeah right, how would you survive a fall like that?”

 

“I fell before, didn’t I? We all have,” Terrell said, gesturing to the wandering lights, the planets, around them. “And you fell from the height of the comet to the ocean and survived. So did the sun.”

 

“Are you telling me that I could fling myself off a building and not die from it?” Keith scoffed.

 

“I wouldn’t recommend it, cause you can still break a lot of bones doing that--but yeah, essentially,” Terrell laughed. “I mean, think about it: do you think someone caught every single one of us when we first fell? I don’t know about you, but there was a time when I was a baby.”

 

Keith frowned. Terrell was, unfortunately, making sense. He continued to tell himself she couldn’t be trusted, but his burning curiosity was finally being sated. Part of him wondered if he could completely trust what she was saying--after all, he was starting to feel mildly sympathetic towards her. That was a dangerous way to feel for someone capable of murder.

 

“Anyways, I don’t have time to spell out everything for you. Got stars to snatch, quotas to meet,” Terrell trilled.

 

“Wait! What was the other option? For Lance, what happens if he doesn’t become the sun again?” Keith called before Terrell could vanish.

 

Terrell rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? He dies with the rest of us.”

 

Keith awoke with a simple blink of his eyes. No gasp, no sudden feeling of falling. Just sudden wakefulness and a prickling pain in his chest and throat. It was late, well past visiting hours. If anyone had come to visit him after Hunk, he missed them. Perhaps that was not so terrible a thing. After all, he might just end up biting their heads off like he had to Hunk. He really ought to apologize for that, he thought idly.

 

The next two days seemed to stretch on for weeks. He asked the medical staff to not let in any more visitors. Worried though he knew they would be, Keith simply didn’t have the energy to keep secrets from his friends. From Lance. He was certain that enough persistence on their part would break him like a dam. Terrell didn’t visit him in the dreamspace, which he wasn’t sure how he felt about. On the one hand, good riddance! She was frustrating and took pleasure in toying with him. On the other hand, she was the only other person who knew anything. And Keith wanted to know everything.

 

Like who he was, really. Why the planets fell to Earth, when the earth itself was a planet as well. Why the fall happened at all. What could be done to keep the people on earth while still returning the planets to the sky. Even with nothing but time on his hands, Keith only ended up giving himself one headache after another, going around in circles trying to figure everything out.

 

At one point he turned to wishmaking. Surely, he thought, this was worth the use of his one allotted wish. He took his dim little star in his hand once more, and wished that he might be separated from the celestial entity he was. Nothing happened. He considered that perhaps he ought to know which planet he had been before he could be separated from it, until he remembered what Lance had said about his own attempts at wishes: that no matter how he tried, he could not make a wish. Perhaps the same was true for Keith as well.

 

He carefully put the star back into his flask. At the very least, it had guided Lance to him when he was most in need. It had some use after all, even if it wasn’t wishmaking.

 

Keith returned to a cold apartment that seemed too large and too empty for himself. He thought idly that perhaps he ought to get a dog sometime. One that wouldn’t mind waiting for Keith to come home. That might be nice.

 

He had just hobbled over to the couch and flopped down on it when a soft knock came at his door. He didn’t have the energy to get up and get it, but it seemed he didn’t need to—Shiro let himself in. Keith raised an eyebrow.

 

“Just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell me to go away, if you wanted,” Shiro explained.

 

“Oh… thanks,” Keith said.

 

“How are you feeling now that you’re out of the hospital?” Shiro asked.

 

“Better, now that I can actually breathe,” Keith replied. “I swear, hospital air always leaves me with a nasty cold, it’s the worst.”

 

“And what about your injuries?”

 

Keith huffed, and listed off everything. He started with the damage to his airway, which was mild, but could give rise to complications if aggravated. Then there was the broken ankle and wrist, which at the very least would have him in the casts he wore for nearly two months (Keith was certain that for him it would be longer). There were a few burns on his chest from where he’d been directly struck with lightning, which still stung even now.

 

“Overall, not that bad, for what it could’ve been,” Keith finished, taking a deep, careful breath.

 

“Yeah, I’m thankful it wasn’t worse,” Shiro added with a tired smile. “Lance seemed to catch some luck too.”

 

Keith schooled his expression to what he hoped was something akin to cool indifference. “Yeah, it’s a miracle that fall didn’t kill him.”

 

A beat of silence passed between them.

 

“Listen, I know you don’t like it when I talk about it--”

 

“Then maybe you shouldn’t.”

 

“--but how are things between you and Lance since then? He seemed a bit put out when I saw him last,” Shiro continued anyways, much to Keith’s dismay.

 

“Things are fine, I just haven’t wanted to talk to anyone lately--you know me, I need space to think things out,” Keith insisted.

 

“True,” Shiro agreed. “I was just curious--”

 

“Well, stop,” Keith snapped. Realizing his tone, he added, “Please.”

 

Another, more uncomfortable pause.

 

“Are you ever planning on telling him?”

 

“Telling him what?” Keith huffed.

 

“How you feel.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

Keith scowled fiercely. “I’m not in love with him,” he snarled.

 

“Keith--”

 

“Maybe at one point I thought I might be, but I’m not. He’s just another person passing through my life, and that’s all,” Keith said harshly, wincing as the words literally stung at his throat.

 

Shiro’s expression was a mix of concern, confusion, and nostalgic sadness. Keith had an inkling of what he was thinking of, and he didn’t like it one bit.

 

“Keith, I know romance and relationships can be scary, but denying what you feel will only make you feel worse,” Shiro began.

 

“I know what I feel, Shiro, and I’m not in denial,” Keith said through gritted teeth.

 

“I know you probably remember, but when Adam and I--”

 

“This isn’t you and Adam though! Stop trying to fit the past into the present, Shiro, let it go! Let him go!”

 

Shiro looked as though Keith had slapped him. He may as well have. Keith pressed his lips tightly together, looking away from Shiro in shame. Neither of them said anything in the following moments. Pain pricked through Keith’s throat and chest. He had to apologize, he knew he had to, but the needles in his throat caught the words before they could even form. The silence stretched on, heavy and stifling.

 

“Alright,” Shiro finally said in a low voice, clearly trying to mask the hurt. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you be then.”

 

“Shiro—“ Keith tried calling out, but Shiro was already out the door.

 

Keith slumped back into the couch, cursing silently. First Hunk, now Shiro. Wasn’t he just on a spectacular sort of roll? Only this time he’d crossed a very big line, one that he knew better than to cross. And yet here he was, so far past the line he couldn’t even see it anymore. Even knowing that, part of Keith was still angry with Shiro. Angry that he kept talking about Lance, angry that no matter how many times Keith had denied everything and told him to leave it be, Shiro still pressed the issue. He said he just wanted Keith to be happy, acting like he knew best what would make that happen.

 

He swiped his pain meds from the coffee table and swallowed a couple dry. Maybe Keith himself didn’t know what would make him happy, especially now of all times. Everything seemed a mess, getting messier with every passing interaction Keith had. There was just no room for happiness, it seemed. At the very least, he told himself as sleep began to overtake him, he knew what would not make him happy, for all that a tiny part of his heart whispered the contrary. Keith squashed that whisper without remorse. It sounded too much like Shiro anyways.

 

The next week and a half was spent in his apartment with too many shadows, resting and very much alone. He didn’t blame anyone for not visiting. No doubt they’d figured out by now he’d only turn them away if they came knocking. Even after a few days of solitude, Keith felt he simply needed space. Space to think, figure everything out. Space to exist, not as a human, but as something else. That thought alone sparked a low buzz just under his skin, almost like an itch he couldn’t scratch. It had him on edge at all times. If anyone came to visit, he’d only snap at them. It was better for him to be alone.

 

His sleep was fitful and dreamless all the while. Terrell didn’t visit him once, and Keith wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for it or not. Terrell had been more forthcoming with what she knew lately, and Keith would be lying if he said he didn’t want to know more. He’d found out so much in only a few days, and there was still so much he didn’t know.

 

His return to the Bureau was silent and without fanfare. Still injured, he was confined to the analysts’ department once more under Hunk’s supervision. The air between them was taut with Keith’s reluctance. Keith kept his head bent low over his work. He ought to apologize, clear the air between them, but he was honestly afraid. Afraid that if things were good between them once more, Hunk might pry again. And if Hunk pried, Keith knew he would come loose. There was no need to drag Hunk into all of this, good as his intentions were.

 

Romelle and Allura visited Keith, informing him that he would be assigned his own partner as soon as he was well again. They eyed him warily--no doubt someone else had warned them of his foul mood as of late. Initially, neither of them asked anything that probed too deep.

 

And then Allura decided he needed a talking to.

 

Keith had sequestered himself in the corner of the analysts’ break room for his lunch when she found him. Most of the analysts had lunch at their desk, using the break room only for the microwave or for idle socializing. It was thus an ideal place to be for someone who wanted to be alone. Allura took a seat right across from Keith, her eyes sharp and searching. Keith sighed. He did not want to deal with this right now.

 

“I know you don’t want to talk,” Allura started.

 

“Do you now?”

 

Allura ignored him. “But moping about like this isn’t going to accomplish anything. You don’t have to tell us what’s on your mind, but don’t shut your friends out either.”

 

“Everyone else seems to think otherwise,” Keith said.

 

“Because we’re worried!” Allura exclaimed. “Have you never been worried for someone before?”

 

“You know I have,” Keith hissed, gripping the edge of the table.

 

Allura was taken aback for only a split second, and her expression hardened again. “Perhaps when things are at their worst, but in the aftermath you conveniently disappear--”

 

“Oh, what a terrible thing, needing space to recover!”

 

“Do your friends mean nothing to you? And what about Lance?!” she demanded.

 

“What about Lance?” Keith asked, pointedly glaring holes into the table and ignoring the implication that he didn’t care about his friends.

 

“I know there’s something going on between you two,” she answered, as though she were privy to some great secret.

 

“Really? I had no idea we were anything other than friends, someone should’ve told me,” Keith drawled.

 

“Don’t,” Allura started in a low voice. “Play dumb with me. Frankly I’ve been uncertain about you from the beginning--”

 

“Then why did you even bother, Allura? Why bother being friendly to me if you thought I was some uncaring, horrible person?” Keith demanded.

 

“Because Lance believed better of you, and I trust Lance! He seems to think that we should be giving you the space you ask for--”

 

“And yet here you are.”

 

“It’s not fair to him!” Allura shouted, slamming her fist on the table, forcing Keith to look up at her. “Does it even matter to you that he very nearly died?! Do you even care what he’s going through at all?!”

 

He did. “I don’t.”

 

That hadn’t been the answer Allura was expecting. She was shocked at first, and then furious.

 

“You--I--”

 

“I need to get back to work,” Keith said simply, stomach roiling.

 

Allura did not stop Keith as he hobbled past her. His head started pounding again, as it was wont to do lately. He thought to himself that he was not sorry for what he said to Allura. He was only sorry that Lance would likely hear it, and be hurt by it. Or perhaps Allura would do the smart thing and not give Lance another thing to worry about. Keith put it out of his mind as best he could; it was out of his hands now.

 

It was only a matter of time, he knew, before Pidge or Lance decided to talk to him. It was like checking off a list, whittling it down until there was nothing left. It left him on the precipice of anxiety. He found himself wishing he could at least talk to Shiro, spill everything and relieve some of the weight that was pressing Keith into the ground. But Shiro hadn’t visited since Keith snapped at him--whether it was because he thought Keith needed space, or he needed space of his own, or both, it was hard to say. Keith supposed it didn’t really matter.

 

He was sleeping less and less, and even when he did, his dreams were never quite the same anymore. Or rather, he wasn’t in the dreamspace, but having actual dreams. Sometimes he spotted Terrell, occasionally Lance, among other faces that he knew he recognized, but forgot as soon as he woke. 

 

More and more often he made glaring errors in the work he was given. Hunk was very obviously concerned, and Keith hated it. Hated the guilt, hated that he couldn’t say anything, hated that everyone hadn’t just left him alone in the first place. His frustration must’ve shown on his face, for Hunk did not bother him regarding anything that wasn’t strictly work related. 

 

It was Pidge he encountered first, although she hadn’t sought him out. Indeed, he’d been on his way back from a doctor’s appointment when they quite literally ran into each other. It was still during work hours, and while Keith had a reason for not being at the Bureau, as far as he knew, Pidge didn’t. Then again, Pidge often did what she wanted. She looked livid, red in the face and scowling. Keith could only assume why that might be.

 

“You going to yell at me too?” he asked, already exhausted.

 

“Not everything is about you, Keith,” she snapped, pushing roughly past him.

 

Keith was at once relieved that Pidge didn’t seem to care about the way he’d been acting and concerned at whatever had her so upset.

 

“Hey, what’s going on?” he called after her.

 

Pidge glared over her shoulder, calling him a hypocrite without saying a word.

 

“Come on, Pidge--”

 

“Whatever, Keith,” she spat. “I got fired. Lucky I’m not in jail.”

 

“What? Why?”

 

“Why do you think?!” she yelled, turning to face him fully. “Somebody told the Bureau I’ve been snooping in places I shouldn’t be, so they fired me!”

 

“Who--whoa, wait, you think I told them?”

 

“Well, let’s see: of the few people I’ve told anything, who has been the most intent on being the biggest possible jerk to everyone around him lately?!” Pidge shouted.

 

“I wouldn’t do that!” Keith insisted. “You know I wouldn’t do that!”

 

“I don’t know what to think, none of us do.”

 

“So you’re just going to blame me? As some sort of petty revenge?”

 

“Yeah, Keith, I am, unless you have a better explanation of what’s going on?” Pidge demanded.

 

Keith huffed and rolled his eyes. Of course it would circle back to the things he didn’t say. He turned to walk away (or limp away, as well as he could with one foot in a cast), and he practically felt the force of Pidge’s rage radiating on his back.

 

“So you’re just going to walk away?! Not even going to try and defend yourself?!” she shrieked.

 

Keith felt his own temper spike. “I thought you said not everything is about me.”

 

Pidge huffed some incoherent string of words. “What is wrong with you?!”

 

“A lot of things, apparently, but nothing that’s any of your business.”

 

Before he could continue to walk away, he felt her grab his arm, forcing him to whip around to face her again. On instinct, Keith threw out his casted arm and shoved her away, towards a patch of ice that she slipped on. She landed hard, and Keith had to mask a wince.

 

Pidge pushed herself up without pause, looking furious as ever, and looking ready to physically fight Keith. But then, unexpectedly, her shoulders slumped, and the anger melted off her face.

 

“You really don’t want to be anyone’s friend anymore then?” she asked in a much softer voice that nearly broke Keith’s heart. “You’re just going to be all by yourself?”

 

Keith nodded. “Yeah.”

 

“Was whatever Terrell did to you that bad?” she continued.

 

“She didn’t do anything.”

 

“So she said something.”

 

Keith didn’t reply, even to lie. He was so tired, he just wanted to go home already. This was easier when Pidge was angry, screaming at him, ready to fight him. He couldn’t handle a Pidge on the brink of breaking, wanting so desperately to help him in any way she could--she hated not being able to fix something. Keith hated to make her feel that way.

 

“She did say something.”

 

Keith started walking away. He couldn’t chance Pidge figuring anything out. He’d already said too much by saying nothing. Pidge followed him easily, not hindered by any lingering injuries. Even so, Keith tried his best to outpace her.

 

“It was after you went after her--she could’ve killed you, but she didn’t--”

 

“Pidge, stop.”

 

“Whatever it is, it’s making you feel like you can’t tell anyone, not even your closest friends--”

 

“Pidge--”

 

But the gears in her head were turning impossibly fast.

 

“And when I told you about Terrell while you were in the hospital--!”

 

Pidge gasped as Keith wheeled around and clamped down on her shoulder with his good hand, his grip like a vice. Her eyes were wide with realization. Keith felt sick to his stomach.

 

“Do not,” he started dangerously. “Say a word.”

 

She nodded, fear evident in her eyes. When he let her go, she didn’t follow when he walked away. She was close. Far too close. Too smart for her own good. He’d known that someone would eventually get something out of him, but he’d apparently fooled himself into thinking that maybe he could keep everything from spilling out.

 

It wasn’t until he got home, slamming the door harder than necessary, that Keith realized his list was down to the last person he wanted to talk to.

 

Days pass, melting into weeks. There was no word from Lance. A couple times, Keith would see him in passing at the Bureau, and while Lance offered a small smile coupled with a friendly wave, he did not approach Keith. Neither did Keith seek Lance out. It baffled him that Lance was, for once, respecting that Keith wanted his space. Baffled him--and tore him apart. He knew it was just that inherent gravity that urged him to get closer, to fall into Lance and never resurface, but during the quietest moments of his loneliness, Keith found himself thinking that he truly missed Lance.

 

Shiro visited him a few times, but conversation between them was stilted and awkward. He was worried about Keith, who felt like he was only barely holding himself together, but he didn’t breathe a word of it. All Shiro did was make sure that Keith was doing alright, generally speaking and then leave. Keith told himself it was fine, that things were better this way. He had a hard time convincing himself of it.

 

Keith told Shiro that he was fine, but even he knew that was a lie. His stomach was more often than not roiling with nausea that amounted to nothing. It was like his body was already too tired and too injured to even be properly sick. His head was almost constantly aching, but aspirin did nothing. He was tired, but also restless. Time passed in fits and starts. He hated being at work, but he couldn’t stand staying at home either. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything other than what he absolutely had to.

 

Through it all, there was still nothing but silence from Lance. Hunk and Shiro both interacted with Keith, but warily, tip-toeing around him like he might snap (in more ways than one). If Allura, and by extension Romelle, ever happened to see him, he was met with nothing but stern glares, and sometimes brief flashes of pity. Pidge was nowhere to be seen, as was to be expected. The news that she had been digging in classified information that was far above her clearance spread like wildfire. No one knew exactly what she’d dug up, but everyone wondered why she’d done it. Keith tried not to listen to the gossip too much.

 

The weeks turned to months. It took longer than it should’ve (which was normal for Keith), but he was finally able to shed the casts from his arm and leg. It should’ve been a happy occasion, but Keith found it hard to feel much of anything. That was, until he was recovered enough to return to the replacer’s department.

 

“What do you mean I’m still grounded?” Keith demanded of his supervisor, a gruff man called Iverson.

 

“Until you get another mental evaluation,” Iverson replied. “I have it from the analysts you’ve been working with that you haven’t been the same since that incident.”

 

Keith grimaced. “I’m fine.”

 

“Until I hear it from a professional, that remains yet to be seen.”

 

Keith slammed his fists on the desk, shouting, “I’m fine!”

 

Iverson stood, looking Keith sternly in the eye. He stood taller than Keith, but Keith was far from intimidated. If anything, it only served to further agitate him.

 

“It’s clear to me that you are anything but fine. Go home before you do something that makes me fire you,” Iverson ordered.

 

Keith clenched his fists, nails digging into the flesh of his palm. He wanted nothing more than to punch this guy’s lights out, but the threat was clear, and, coming from Iverson, very real. Keith had just enough clarity of thought to realize that if he lost his job, there would be nothing left to keep his steady, downward spiral from turning into a veritable freefall. He stormed out of the Bureau and didn’t stop until he was home.

 

He was feeling more acutely and more violently than he had in months. He’d hoped that flying would help soothe his frayed mind--now he didn’t even have that. Distantly he thought he should take a walk, but for all the fire that was stoked by his anger, Keith felt far too exhausted to even attempt it. Instead, he slammed the door to his apartment as hard as he could. He considered throwing something, breaking something--doing anything to relieve this overwhelming frustration.

 

In the end, Keith could do nothing but flop into bed to chase sleep that simply wouldn’t come.

 

One day seeped into another. Keith got an email telling him not to come back until he got a mental evaluation, good or bad. He couldn’t muster up enough energy to schedule an appointment. Too often he berated himself for this sluggishness. Certainly he’d fallen on hard times before--he’d been very young when he lost his father. But never had he allowed himself to fall so low. On the contrary, normally he worked longer hours when he was upset, preferring to keep busy and not think too much on whatever was bothering him. So why could he barely even manage to take care of himself now…?

 

A knock at his front door broke through the haze. He dragged a hand through the mess of his hair as he rolled out of bed. When he didn’t hear the front door open, curiosity stirred in his head. If it wasn’t Shiro, then who--Keith stopped just short of opening the door. Already he could feel his entire body sag with familiar relief. He knew exactly who was behind the door. Another knock.

 

Keith opened the door.

 

“Hey,” Lance greeted softly, smiling wide.

 

Keith smiled in spite of himself. It was like a fog had cleared, and for the first time in a while Keith felt alive. He invited Lance in without a second thought. His apartment, which had seemed so dark lately, even with all the lights on, brightened immediately. He very nearly forgot, given how long it had been, but Keith turned up the heat for Lance’s sake, though Keith himself would be sweating sooner rather than later. From the instant Lance had stepped in his apartment, Keith had been feeling warm. It wouldn’t be long before he burned.

 

No sooner had Keith closed the door and turned around than he was being enveloped in a hug that could melt all the ice encasing the earth. He was too startled to return it, but Lance didn’t linger for too long. He held Keith at arm’s length, looking at him as though trying to memorize every detail on his face.

 

“I’ve been trying to give you some space, like you wanted,” Lance explained. “But… I missed you. I hope this is okay?” Please be okay, his eyes seemed to beg.

 

And who was Keith to deny Lance? “Of course.”

 

They sat together on the couch, closer than Keith would’ve expected, but he was not about to tell Lance to stop. Lance filled the silence with aimless chatter, telling Keith all about the little things that had happened in his life in the last few months. Keith listened patiently, feeling almost fond as Lance told story after story animatedly, not once prying into Keith’s life as everyone else had. By the time Lance had exhausted his supply of things to say, an hour had passed.

 

“So,” Lance started in that familiar tone, the one that told Keith he was about to pry. “How are you doing?”

 

Keith turned away. “I’m fine.”

 

He expected Lance to tell him he wasn’t fine. To insist that Keith open up to him. Keith told himself he was ready for it, that he’d been expecting this moment, this final severance, for some time now. What he wasn’t expecting was a tender hand on his, the other reaching for that familiar gesture, sweeping hair out of Keith’s face. Keith couldn’t help but look back at Lance.

 

“Keith, you know I care about you, right?”

 

He hadn’t said “we”. He said “I”. Keith’s brain couldn’t help but narrow down on the distinction.

 

“Yes,” Keith slowly replied.

 

“I don’t want to do anything that’ll upset you,” Lance continued. “So… if that means leaving your life for good, then I’ll do it, just say the word.”

 

Keith gaped. “Lance…”

 

“I don’t want to leave you,” Lance quickly added. “I want to be here for you and support you even when the chips are down. But you’ve been pushing everyone else away… I’ve been thinking you might do the same to me.”

 

“I just--everyone wants me to talk about what happened, about what’s bothering me, but I can’t,” Keith couldn’t help but explain.

 

Lance regarded him with steady blue eyes. “You don’t want to push everyone away.”

 

It wasn’t a question.

 

“You don’t want to be alone, but you think it’s for the best,” Lance said. “That’s--I don’t want to say that’s fine, but I don’t want you to be all by yourself. I want to help you, but if you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t make you, just--just let me stay by your side.”

 

And that, more than anything anyone else had ever said, came the closest to drawing the truth out of Keith. It was on the tip of his tongue, coaxed by Lance’s sincerity and genuine desire to be there for Keith. Would it be so wrong, he started to think, if Lance knew? There was a chance that Lance might not even believe him, after all--unless Pidge had told the others about Terrell, which she likely had. Keith sighed deeply. He couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t risk Lance.

 

He pulled away from Lance.

 

“Keith, please,” Lance said. “I don’t want to leave you--and I don’t think you want me to either.”

 

Keith didn’t dare open his mouth. Part of him wanted more than anything for Lance to stay--another part told him he didn’t really feel that way. Gravity was a powerful force. What in the universe could possibly be stronger?

 

“Keith?”

 

“I’m sorry,” Keith sighed. “But I just--I need to be alone.”

 

“You think you need to be alone, but what if--”

 

“I know I need to be alone. I know that it’s better this way,” Keith insisted.

 

“No it’s not!” Lance suddenly snapped.

 

“Don’t act like you know what’s best for me!”

 

“Maybe I don’t, but anyone with eyes can see that you’re miserable, Keith, and I don’t want that for you!”

 

“Why does it even matter to you?”

 

“Because--”

 

Lance paused abruptly. Keith turned back towards him, curious. Lance’s lips were pressed together tightly in a thin line, as though he was debating whether to say what he really wanted or not. Keith didn’t want to draw this out any longer than it needed to be. His skin prickled with overbearing heat.

 

“Because what, Lance?” he demanded.

 

“Because,” Lance started, slowly, softly. “I think I’m in love with you.”

 

Keith blinked. His ears were ringing. His heart jumped with sheer joy--only to be brought plummeting back down. Maybe Lance was in love, but Keith was not. And now Keith would have to tell him.

 

“What?” Keith sputtered, though he’d heard Lance quite clearly the first time.

 

Lance huffed. “I’m in love with you, Keith. And I know you feel something for me too, so don’t try--”

 

“You’re wrong,” Keith interrupted. “I’m--I don’t feel the same way.”

 

“I don’t believe you.”

 

“That doesn’t change anything,” Keith insisted. “I don’t feel the same.”

 

“Then how do you feel?”

 

“None of your business!”

 

“Tell me!”

 

“I don’t owe you anything!”

 

Next thing Keith knew, Lance had a vice-like grip on his shoulders, having grabbed him and wheeled him around to actually look at him. Keith tried his best to keep his expression impassive. Lance, meanwhile, looked equal parts frustrated and confused, with a touch of heartbreak. Keith didn’t want to look.

 

“Just--just tell me straight out. If you tell me you don’t love me, then I’ll drop it. If you want me gone, just say the word and I’ll leave. But Keith, even if you don’t love me, I don’t want to leave you all by yourself.”

 

Keith took a deep breath.

 

“I am not in love with you, Lance.”

 

Keith wished he could look away.

 

“And I want you to leave.”

 

Lance’s hands slid reluctantly from Keith’s shoulders. His eyes were downcast, and their color seemed muted. His lips fluttered as though he wanted to say something, but there were no words. Keith wondered if there was even anything left to say. Lance stood, and left without another word, only one last glance at Keith as he made his way to the door. With him went any semblance of light, and all of Keith’s pain and nausea and fatigue returned tenfold. He curled in on himself, everything seeming to spin out of control without even moving.

 

Just like that, Lance was gone, and Keith was finally, completely alone.

 

And he hated it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed! Happy Thanksgiving to my US peeps. See y'all next week for the next chapter ;D


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooo buddy, here we go! I wrote the majority of this chapter in the last two days, so I've got whiplash. Enjoy!

If Keith had any capacity for emotion left, he might’ve been at least a little glad that he didn’t have to go to work after what he said to Lance, if only because it meant that if Allura wanted to chew him out for it, she would have to go out of her way to do it. As it was, in the hours after Lance left, Keith could only feel physical pain, wrenching at his gut and weighing down his joints. And with sleep evading him as stubbornly as ever, Keith could only sit on the couch, curled in on himself and wishing that something else, anything else, could occupy his thoughts, even if only for a little while.

 

For once, his wish came true.

 

He wasn’t sure if he’d finally managed to get some sleep or if he was hallucinating from lack of it, but at some point, in the darkness of his apartment, the stars appeared, dancing in his vision. There was a buzzing just under his skin; it felt almost familiar, but at the same time foreign and unwelcome. Keith pressed his hands to his eyes to dispel the vision, the sensation—or at least, he tried to. This, whatever it was, was more dreamlike than what he normally experienced, for his hands, if he still had them, didn’t respond. He thought he could feel them, but when he tried to look down to make sure they were still there, his head didn’t move.

 

The dream was well and truly out of his control. Once Keith realized that, he relaxed into it. Or at the very least, he stopped trying to control it. It wasn’t entirely unlike his usual dreams otherwise, except that it was a bit hazy. Something stirred deep within him, like a tug propelling him forward. The buzzing became a sort of anticipation—it whispered of some great happening, something rare and wonderful. If Keith had been capable of doing anything, he would’ve scoffed at the notion. In his current state, however, he could only ride the wave where it took him. Even the stars seemed to look on in interest.

 

Before he could even begin to be curious about this grand happening, Keith was on his couch again, knees drawn up to his chest as he hugged himself tightly. He must’ve been sleeping, he thought, as almost the entire night had passed. The clock read three in the morning, but without it he might’ve guessed it was three in the afternoon. Outside people were bustling up and down the sidewalk, wide awake and going about their day as usual. In a world that knew no sunshine, time was only barely able to give structure. People did what they wanted, and time itself could not stop them.

 

Keith, for all that he was not human, did much the same. For the next week he slept whenever he wanted, sometimes for thirteen hours, sometimes for three. He didn’t bother turning on the lights, instead navigating the shadows as easily as though he were a shadow himself. It was difficult to make himself eat—his logical mind told him that eating so little was what was making him feel so weary, but he couldn’t be bothered to do more than the bare minimum about it. He ordered take-out often, only to pick at it for days. Often he despaired at how how low he’d allowed himself to fall—even so, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. It made him despair even more, turning into a vicious cycle that Keith was desperate to break.

 

When he got a phone call telling him that an appointment for a mental evaluation had been scheduled on his behalf, Keith was reluctant to go. It was with a counselor employed by the Bureau, and he trusted the Bureau about as much as he trusted Terrell right now: only a little, but with much caution. Of the two, Keith wasn’t sure which he’d rather deal with.

 

The day of the appointment came unbidden, however, and Keith dragged himself out of his apartment towards what he knew would be certain failure. At the very least, breathing in crisp, frostbitten air was a little refreshing, and helped him feel a little more alive again. As soon as he stepped in the clinic, however, he was back to feeling downtrodden and utterly hopeless. At best, whoever he saw would pick up on it but not say anything to him. They would, he hoped, silently mark him down as unfit for field work for the time being, and send him on his way.

 

At worst, which counselors often tended to be, Keith would find someone trying to force their way into his head.

 

So when his name was called in the dead silence of the waiting room, Keith braced himself for the worst, unable to hope for the best. The counselor was not in the office he was led to, which meant more waiting. He hated having to wait like this. He didn’t sit down immediately; he’d been doing too much of that in his own home lately. He peered at the books lined neatly on the pristine shelves, surprised to find a wide array of topics available rather than a select few self-help books or psychology books regarding specific topics.

 

On the windowsill was a curious assortment of knick-knacks. There was a Newton’s cradle, which Keith could help but fiddle with. The sharp but quiet click-clack had an almost soothing effect on his frazzled and restless nerves. Then there were a few figurines, rounded shapes in soft pastels. At the other end of the windowsill was what looked to be a blown glass paperweight. It was mostly clear, save for a few smaller, brightly colored orbs within. Keith quickly recognized with a jolt that it was the solar system.

 

There, in the center was the Earth, a pale yet distinct blue dot. A clear orbit had been crafted around it, to be followed by the moon, and indeed there it was, a tiny but shimmering pearl suspended in glass. Then, farther out, the sun. Lance, Keith’s mind unhelpfully supplied. Even knowing that, however, it was a little difficult to reconcile Lance with that gleaming, yellow speck. The idea of the sun was much more suited to Lance rather than anything physical thing, Keith thought.

 

The door clicked open while he was still considering the paperweight. It was a different counselor than the one he’d seen all those months ago, when he’d first applied for replacer training. This was a tall, stately woman with shining white hair--it vaguely reminded him of Allura’s, except how it seemed to have a light of it’s own. Not to mention, this woman appeared to be considerably older than Allura.

 

“Hello, Keith, how are you today?” she greeted pleasantly, extending a hand to him.

 

He took it quickly, dropping it even quicker as he mumbled that he was doing as well as he could.

 

“Would you like to have a seat?” she asked, gesturing to one of the comfy looking chairs.

 

“Not really.”

 

“Fair enough,” she said. “Let’s get to it then. Oh, you can call me Miss Essa, by the way. Anyways, your supervisor arranged this appointment for you--according to him, a few months ago you were involved in an incident where you witnessed the near death of a former partner of yours. Could you tell me about that?”

 

“I’d rather not.”

 

“Why’s that?”

 

Keith huffed. He wasn’t in the mood for this.

 

“Because I don’t want to, end of story.”

 

Miss Essa hummed as though she understood something. It felt horribly violating.

 

“Look,” Keith started, feeling resigned. “I know I’m in a bad way right now, in a way that no one in their right mind would put me back out in the field for a while so could you just--stamp my file with a failure and sentence me to however many months of paper shuffling it takes for me to get back to normal?”

 

She regarded him with a brief, searching gaze, and then promptly opened his file to do just as he asked. Keith blinked. He hadn’t actually expected that to work.

 

“What?” she asked, when she noticed him staring.

 

“Nothing, I--I didn’t expect you to actually do that.”

 

Miss Essa leaned back in her chair, looking casual without sacrificing her stately demeanor.

 

“You said that’s what you wanted.”

 

“Yeah, but normally someone in your position would try to get me to talk about my feelings and stuff…” Keith mumbled.

 

“True,” she agreed with a sage nod. “But I’m not too worried about it, much as I do want to help you. Right now you don’t want to accept help, but at the very least you’ve acknowledged that where you’re at now is not a good place to be. That’s a good start to getting better.”

 

Keith scowled. Miss Essa frowned at that.

 

“What? You don’t want to get better?”

 

“Did I say that?” Keith snapped. 

 

Miss Essa didn’t even flinch. She seemed to be waiting for a proper answer. Keith’s scowl deepened.

 

“It doesn’t matter if I don’t like where I am, it’s where I--it is what it is,” he told her reluctantly.

 

“You were going to say it’s where you belong?”

 

“Will you quit it?! Give me my file and let me be on my way, I don’t need anyone sticking their nose in my business.”

 

Miss Essa regarded him with a supposedly critical eye once more, and then handed the file to him. He snatched it from her hand and began to stalk out of her office, ready to go to the Bureau to slap the file in Iverson’s face. Before he was out of the door, however, Miss Essa stopped him.

 

“Keith,” she said. “Keep in mind that it’s possible that not everything is as complicated as you’re making them out to be.”

 

She had a knowing look in her eye, so knowing that it unnerved Keith. He walked away without another word. The sensation of her eyes boring into his back followed him all the way to the Bureau.

 

He didn’t slap the file in Iverson’s face like he wanted, but he did manage to make Iverson jump when Keith slapped it on his desk. Iverson gave him a cross look, but was silent as he opened the file to read what Miss Essa had written. Iverson raised his eyebrows.

 

“Shocking,” he said in a dry tone.

 

Keith didn’t respond. He was already too tired to even feel aggravated at the sarcasm.

 

“You’ve been cleared to continue the full scope of your duties as a replacer,” Iverson said in spite of Keith’s silence.

 

That snapped Keith out of the rapidly oncoming fog of fatigue. “What?”

 

Iverson scowled. “You heard me. Be here for your normal shift tomorrow, maybe a little earlier so you can become acquainted with your new partner.”

 

“Oh, uh… Alright.”

 

With nothing left to say, Keith stumbled back home in a daze. Just what game was that counselor playing, acting as though she’d failed him? She didn’t really think he was able to return to field work in this state, did she? Keith slammed his door a little harder than he should’ve upon returning. Did she think she was doing him some favor? That, somehow, by doing this, things would start to get better for him?

 

He didn’t even bother to shuck off his outer layers when he fell into bed. It wasn’t like he was intending to sleep, he just didn’t know what else to do. But lying about didn’t seem so consuming a task as it had been only a day before. Keith was now restless with frustration, a feeling that seemed to grow with every passing idle moment. Eventually, it grew to be too much.

 

Keith pushed himself up from his bed and looked around, suddenly eager for something to keep him busy. Now that he was looking, there seemed to be no shortage of things to do. In his depressed stupor, his apartment had fallen into disarray. The sight of it irked him now in a way it hadn’t for some months. He took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and set himself to work.

 

First to be tackled was the bed. Keith ripped off the sheets with fervor, his thoughts going where they wished like background noise. This wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this, he thought as he searched for enough quarters to do all his laundry. No, Keith had gone into slumps like this before, and the current one always seemed worse than the last. Such was the pain of the present, he supposed.

 

In the past, recovery had been some slow and stilted thing, to the point where sometimes one episode would bleed into the next, like a wave crashing over his head before he’d managed to suck down a breath. It was Shiro, he recalled with a pang, that suggested that cleaning was a good start to getting his life back on track. It was by no means a solution, just a start. It kept Keith busy, but more importantly, it gave him something he could control when everything else seemed so hopelessly out of his hands. 

 

He had, of course, scoffed at the idea when Shiro had initially suggested it. At the time, he had been deep in a downward swing, with barely enough energy to take care of himself. How was he supposed to muster up any sort of motivation to clean his home?

 

“Just start with something small,” Shiro had told him. “Like throwing away one piece of trash. Don’t even worry about anything else, just throw away one piece of trash.”

 

And because Shiro had become something of an older brother to him (though he was not very much older than Keith himself), Keith promised to give it a try. Only garbage manifested in heaps, so in aiming to throw away only one piece of garbage, Keith found himself gathering up every piece of trash that hadn’t made it to the bin and taking it out. Afterwards he had been exhausted and unable to do anything else for the rest of the day, but at the very least, he didn’t feel guilty about all the trash lying around his house. So, he supposed, that had been an improvement. 

 

Guilt washed anew over Keith at the memory. He had yet to apologize to Shiro for what he’d said. It had been so far out of line, Keith cringed internally at the thought of it. Shiro was a good man, but what if he wasn’t ready to forgive Keith for it? What if he never was? Keith shook his head of the thought, focusing instead on hoisting the two heavy bags of garbage down to the dumpster. Shiro hadn’t abandoned him before, so Keith had to trust that he wouldn’t do so now, even if Shiro had been keeping his distance since then.

 

But then, the fearful part of Keith worried, if he apologized, wouldn’t he have to explain why he’d said such a thing in the first place? There was no way Shiro would believe that Keith had simply been annoyed with his constant pestering regarding Lance. It was all too obvious to Shiro--everyone, actually--that something had been weighing down on Keith. It felt no less heavy now as he dragged the few rugs he had out into the hallway so he could sweep. Should he perhaps tell them everything after all?

 

There was a possibility he might not have to. If Pidge had indeed figured out the truth (which she likely had, especially given how he’d reacted), there was little chance of her actually heeding him and keeping her mouth shut about it. He didn’t begrudge her for it; only yesterday he would’ve been, if the thought had actually crossed his mind. Certainly she’d been angry about getting caught and subsequently fired for sharing classified information, but the threat hadn’t been enough to stop her in the first place.

 

It occurred to Keith, however, that Pidge had only been sharing information about Terrell in the first place because she didn’t want her friends charging blindly after a literal supervillain. So long as he didn’t pose a threat to anyone Pidge cared about, she wouldn’t say anything, right? No, he thought as he filled up a bucket with steaming hot water and lemon scented soap, she might tell the others anyways, what with the way he’d been acting. How long would it be until they came by together, assuring him that everything would be okay?

 

It was a good thing he was cleaning the place up.

 

With all the clutter removed and the air heavy with the smell of citrus, Keith felt as though he could breathe a little easier. His entire body was heavy with fatigue, but in a good way, the way that came from scrubbing every surface of his home and making it feel a little more livable again. He had one load of laundry left in the dryer downstairs. It was just as well, as it was getting late and he had to go into work tomorrow. Now, however, he didn’t feel so agitated about the thought. In fact, he felt positively optimistic compared to a few hours ago.

 

When he came back up to his apartment with a basket full of laundry in hand, however, an unexpected sight awaited him. A tall, imposing woman was at his door, pounding furiously. Keith wondered if she had the wrong door, since he had never seen her before. Her expression was positively fearsome. He approached with caution.

 

“Uh, excuse me--”

 

She was on him in an instant, sharp eyes flashing dangerously. “Where is Lance?!”

 

Keith blinked, taken aback. “I--I don’t know. Should I know? Did something happen to him?”

 

The woman groaned and removed her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. It occurred to Keith that she looked far more tired and harried than angry. There was definitely anger, to be certain, but more than that, this woman seemed almost… panicked. When she opened her eyes again, Keith noticed for the first time their intense and familiar blue color. A relative of Lance’s, perhaps?

 

“He hasn’t been home in two days,” the woman said. “I thought maybe he came back here, in spite of what you said to him last week.”

 

Keith felt his heart twist uncomfortably, but set the feeling aside temporarily. “And the Bureau?”

 

“Won’t tell me anything. Or if they do, it’s never the same story. Some people just don’t know, others say he got transferred to another place…”

 

“And he didn’t say anything unusual when you last saw him?” Keith pressed, the pit of his stomach churning sickeningly.

 

“If he did I probably wouldn’t be here,” the woman snapped. “If he’s not here then I’m leaving, but keep an eye out for him.”

 

Before she left, she handed Keith a slip of paper with a number to call if he did find Lance. Above it was written the name, “Veronica McClain”. So she was a relative, probably one of the older sisters Lance had mentioned so frequently. It came as no surprise that she didn’t seem to like Keith very much.

 

In the meantime, Keith’s gut was now roiling so much that he was worried he might actually puke, because this couldn’t possibly be a coincidence, could it? Lance was the sun, and he’s disappeared. Somebody knew who he was and decided to take him for their own, for what purpose Keith couldn’t possibly begin to hash out. It didn’t matter, anyways. What mattered was that Lance was in danger and Keith was dead certain he knew who could be at the root of this new trouble.

 

He threw on his newly dried coat (what luck, that this news had come only after everything had been done), and grabbed the broom that he had been sweeping with no less than an hour ago. Just before leaving, he picked up his star, his one allotted wish, and held it up by the cord it was attached to. He did not make a wish.

 

Instead, he whispered to it, “Take me to Terrell.”

 

As if waiting for his command, the little star pressed insistently against the sturdy flask, drawing it up and away from Keith. He hurried outside, finding that no matter which way he moved, it pointed in the same direction. It would guide him precisely where he wanted to go, just as he’d hoped. He hopped onto his broom and took off into the air without hesitation. Only a moment later he realized that he’d once again forgotten to grab a hat, but that was hardly important right now. What was important was finding Terrell and doing what he should’ve done all those months ago when he’d had the chance.

 

Keith flew for what seemed like hours, the wind biting at his cheeks and ears all the while. It gave him plenty of time to think of all things he should’ve brought but didn’t: his phone, a hat, a scarf, maybe an extra coat for when he found Lance… He briefly considered that he might’ve liked to bring his pager, but then he decided that under no circumstances did he want the Bureau involved this time. He didn’t want to chance them finding out and taking Lance themselves to stitch him into the sky. No, Keith would deal with this himself.

 

After some time, the star finally began to point downwards, and Keith began his rapid descent. Through the darkness, he saw what looked to be an abandoned suburban neighborhood. There were lots of those, these days. They made for great hiding places for snatchers and other criminals, as they were so easily overlooked in the all-encompassing darkness. As Keith got closer, however, he saw flashes of light from within some of the houses. Terrell was in one of them, and he hardly needed the star to know it. It was like a humming, deep in his bones, an old and primal sensation. Keith wondered distantly how he hadn’t noticed the sensation before.

 

(He wondered if it would feel the same for other planets, or if they all had their own distinct feel.)

 

There seemed to be no one keeping a lookout as Keith landed in front of the house that Terrell was in. He wasted no time in kicking down the front door. He was immediately met with shouting, and several people rushed to stop him. He wielded his broom like a weapon, smacking several in the face and jabbing others in their guts. Still, there were more than Keith could reasonably handle in a short amount of time. His eyes caught the dim lights all around the place--he had never consciously used his powers before, but perhaps now would be a good time to try.

 

It was like a balloon inflating in his chest, calling upon his powers. It was almost alarming, how insistently it welled up within him, as though having been waiting all along to be used and being over eager now that the time had finally come. But Keith did not resist it. Instead he allowed it to very nearly overwhelm him, and just when it felt he was at the precipice of some great cliff, while also being completely surrounded by snatchers, he let it go, and plunged the entire place into the deepest darkness.

 

It was darker even than the night outside, but where the snatchers were blind and panicking, Keith could see perfectly fine. He stuffed his star in his pocket. No need for it now. Either Terrell would hear the screaming and come to investigate, or Keith would break into whichever room she was hiding in.

 

He ducked around the scrambling snatchers and pressed himself against a wall. He was making his way towards the hallway when someone stomped out, all fury and impatience.

 

“Enough!” Terrell shouted, commanding everyone to silence. Keith felt his hold on the darkness waver at her tone.

 

She looked around as blindly as everyone else. “That’s enough playing around, what do you want?”

 

Keith let the light return, and all the snatchers nearly jumped him again but for a small wave of Terrell’s hand. They were confused, but did not dare to defy her. She crossed her arms and scowled.

 

“Well?”

 

Keith launched himself at her and slammed her against a wall. Her snatchers were ready to pull him off, but again she stopped them. She didn’t seem at all concerned, only vaguely annoyed.

 

“Where is Lance?” Keith hissed.

 

“Who?” Terrell asked. “Oh, you mean the sun.”

 

“His name is Lance!” Keith growled. “And I know you have him!”

 

Terrell raised an eyebrow. “Do you now?”

 

“Where is he?!”

 

Terrell rolled her eyes, even as Keith tightened his grip on her.

 

“Look,” Terrell started. “I do intend to get my hands on him, but I guarantee you that if I had already, I wouldn’t be here, and you would never be able to find me.”

 

“You’re lying.”

 

“Seriously? When was the last time I lied to your face? Half-truths, yes, but lies? Never.”

 

Keith regarded her for a moment, scrutinizing her nearly blank expression. Once again, she had a point. For all that she taunted him and often didn’t say what she meant, as far as he could remember, she had never outright lied to him. Damn her.

 

With a resigned sigh, he let her go.

 

“I take it he’s missing?”

 

Keith nodded. “For about two days now. As far as I know, the only ones who know about him are me and you…”

 

“So you thought I’d taken him. Fair enough,” Terrell said. “Come on, let’s chat.”

 

She gestured for Keith to follow her down the unlit hallway, all the way to the last room on the right. The room was painted a dark color and lit only by a jar full of stars. The room itself was very tidy and organized--there was a bed and a desk, on top of which was a wide assortment of knick knacks. Stacks of books lined one wall, which took Keith by surprise if he was being honest. He never would’ve thought that a criminal might have time to read.

 

“You going to sit or not?” Terrell asked as she perched at the edge of the nicely made bed.

 

Keith shook his head.

 

“Whatever floats your boat,” Terrell sighed, shrugging. “So you say he’s gone missing?”

 

“How many times do you need me to say it?”

 

“As many times as I want. Now, he’s been missing for two days… anyone near him notice anything unusual the last they saw him?”

 

“No, not that I’ve been told anyways.”

 

Terrell hummed. “What about when you last saw him?”

 

“That was over a week ago,” Keith said quickly.

 

Terrell leaned forward with keen interest. “Something happened between you two?”

 

“None of your business! And like I said, it was over a week ago.”

 

“Alright, alright, cool your jets… It’s just that we don’t have very much to work with,” Terrell said.

 

“‘We’?”

 

Terrell nodded. “You don’t really think I’m going to sit back and do nothing about it, do you? You know I have plans for him, I can’t have him going where I can’t get him.”

 

Keith didn’t like the idea of working with Terrell, but it was clear from just a few moments here that she had a large network of snatchers at her disposal. Not to mention the incredible power that was quite literally at her fingertips and entirely under her control. Reluctant as he was, it seemed it might be best for Keith to work with Terrell for the time being. And if she tried anything contrary to what he wanted, well…

 

Terrell huffed suddenly, her arms crossed. “The only people I can think of that would have him would be the Bureau themselves.”

 

“That--how would they’ve even found out?!” Keith wondered as he felt the blood drain from his face. If the Bureau really did have him and it had already been two days…

 

“Might’ve been a spontaneous manifestation of his own powers, something more clear than exceptionally good health,” Terrell mused. “That’s how the Bureau found out about me, anyways.”

 

“Right,” Keith started slowly, remembering what he’d read about her. “The file I read said you’d killed three snatchers.”

 

Terrell’s expression twisted into something exceptionally unpleasant, and Keith felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

 

“That,” she said, her voice not unlike the distant threat of thunder. “Was an accident.”

 

“Okay,” Keith quickly agreed. “An accident, I got it.”

 

Her expression hardly smoothed as they returned to the problem at hand. “Anyways, the Bureau most likely has him--what department was he in?”

 

Keith grimaced as he said it. “The solar task force.”

 

“Oh my stars,” Terrell groaned. “Are you kidding me? It’s a wonder they didn’t single him out sooner! Good grief--we don’t have much time, they only kept me around for a week, and I’m just a planet, I doubt they’d want to keep news of the sun quiet for very long.”

 

She got up and made her way out the door, and Keith followed, asking, “Wait, what’s the plan?!”

 

“We storm the Bureau, duh,” Terrell said with a shrug.

 

“Yeah, cause that’ll work again.”

 

“Did I say we were doing it the same way as last time? No. This time we have you, and frankly, between me and you, getting into the Bureau will be a breeze this time around.”

 

Once again, Keith found himself irked at having to pull the entire explanation out of Terrell, but he managed to get the entire idea by the time they were out in front of the Bureau. Part of his powers, she explained, involved becoming practically invisible in shadows. He could also hide anyone with him, she added. At first, Keith objected to this, as he didn’t recall ever doing such a thing, but Terrell remembered differently.

 

“You remember when I was starting wildfires all willy-nilly?” she asked once they were safely touched down on a roof near the Bureau’s headquarters. “You were there for one of them, weren’t you? You and the sun?”

 

“His name is Lance,” Keith reminded her. “And yeah, but you never actually found us.”

 

“I knew it! You guys were there! Well, anyways, I sensed the s--Lance--but I guess him being with you boosted your power enough that I couldn’t even tell where he was. Then, when I saw you in the Bureau when we broke in, things made sense. With you by his side, it was no wonder the Bureau didn’t immediately pick up on who he really is,” Terrell explained.

 

“He boosted my power? How does that even work?”

 

Terrell huffed. “Do you want me to spell things out for you for the next week or do we want to save your friend?”

 

Keith scowled. “What’s the plan then?”

 

“We’re going to walk right in!” Terrell said enthusiastically. “You’ll hide us in the shadows, and--”

 

“Great plan and all, but do you even know where they’re keeping him?”

 

“The solar task force department. They held me in the planetary task force department when they found me out.”

 

“Okay, second point: you need a special badge to get into that department, and I don’t have one, and I know for sure you don’t--”

 

But he was silenced as Terrell pulled out what looked to be the exact badge they needed. Only the keycard, but no ID. No telling who she might’ve swiped it from. Her expression was that of chaotic delight. Clearly this sort of lifestyle was fun for her. Keith didn’t even bother to ask where she’d gotten it from. They’d wasted enough time already.

 

Below them, the Bureau was as busy as it always was. When it came to replacing the stars in the sky, there was no break or pause for such an organization. There were as many people in the supposed nighttime hours as there were in the so-called daytime ones. Keith hid them well before they approached the entrance--or at least, he hoped they were hidden. He must’ve been successful though, because not a single person spared him, or more importantly Terrell, a second glance, or indeed even a first one. It was as Terrell assured him: in the shadows, they were invisible.

 

The only downside was having to stick to where the shadows were, which meant they couldn’t walk directly to the solar task force department. The crept along the walls, careful not to bump into anyone or cross a place with no trace of darkness. Keith found himself straining after a few moments--how had it been so effortless when he’d had no idea of what he was capable of? He wanted to ask Terrell, but had no doubt his powers would not prevent other people from hearing him, so he remained silent.

 

When they finally reached the single, unassuming door that led to the solar task force department, Keith was sweating from the effort of keeping them hidden. Terrell waited for the right moment, and then tapped the card against the magnetic lock. It clicked open, and she opened the door quickly, practically dragging Keith along in with her. Behind that door was a hallway with another door--they were really serious about keeping their secrets, Keith thought--but behind that door was a sprawling office space.

 

Only something was very wrong already. Where the rest of the Bureau was bustling with non-stop activity, this place was completely desolate and empty. It set Keith on edge.

 

“Something isn’t right,” he whispered.

 

“It’s fine,” Terrell assured him, not even bothering to stick to the shadows anymore. “Once they found me, they dismissed everyone save for a few people. Less likely for a secret to get out like that, you know?”

 

She picked her way through the boxes of now obsolete paperwork, and after a hesitant moment, Keith followed. Only half of the lights were on, casting stark shadows throughout the entire place. If there had been any need for them to hide, it would’ve been all too easy.

 

Keith couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. What if they were wrong about where Lance was, as he had been the first time? He hoped that wasn’t the case.

 

“Where exactly would they be keeping him?” Keith asked.

 

“In one of the back offices, most likely, though I have no doubt that they’re better prepared for a person this time around,” Terrell answered as she guided them towards a hallway lined with doors.

 

Some of the doors still had nameplates on them, others only minute evidence that there’d once been a name to the door. Terrell paused, and motioned for Keith to do the same. He listened intently, but found only silence so overwhelming that it rang insistently in his ears. Terrell looked from door to door, her manner searching, but she didn’t yet open any of the doors. It was only then that Keith realized she wasn’t listening for anything at all.

 

This entire time, her presence so close by had been so overwhelming that Keith hadn’t even thought to try and feel for Lance’s presence. Surely he must be easier to sense than Terrell, right? Even as he started to try to focus, all he was picking up on was a sensation not unlike the air before a lightning strike--a sensation not unlike unfamiliar anticipation. It was so undeniably Terrell that Keith couldn’t mistake it for anything else. But surely, he thought, if Lance were near, whatever presence he had would trump Terrell’s, right? After all, the sun was bigger than Jupiter by a long shot, and regardless of who was more aware and in control--

 

Terrell stopped at the very last door at the end of the hall.

 

“He’s here.”

 

Upon seeing Keith’s questioning glance, she smirked. “You probably can’t sense him because you’re too physically close to me.”

 

Keith scowled and pushed past her to open the door. It swung open easily; part of him was suspicious that it had been unlocked, but he quickly moved past the feeling. The room before him had the clinical feel of a doctor’s office instead of an office used by someone searching for the sun, although the walls were still painted in dull, dreary colors. It was unnerving, to say the least. There was a cot with a thin blanket, a table, a chair, and--

 

“Lance!”

 

Lance jerked his head up, having been sitting in the single chair, hunched over the table with his head in his hands. He looked worse than Keith had ever remembered seeing him. There were bags under his eyes, his short hair was a mess, and in general he just didn’t seem to… shine. Everything about him was lackluster. It broke Keith’s heart, but there was no time for that right now. Right now, they had to get Lance out of here.

 

“Keith, what are you doing here? And with Terrell--what’s going on?!” Lance demanded, looking equal parts alarmed and confused. 

 

“Don’t worry, everything’s okay,” Keith assured him. “We’re getting you out of here!”

 

Rather than brighten, as Keith foolishly hoped he might, Lance’s already slouched shoulders dropped even lower, bringing Keith’s heart with them. He knew.

 

“I can’t,” Lance said. “Keith, you know, don’t you? You figured it out months ago?”

 

Keith didn’t say anything.

 

Lance sighed deeply. “I’m the sun. The earth needs me, humanity needs me--so I’ll go--”

 

“Lance, no!”

 

“What am I supposed to do? Let the entire planet die? Newsflash, that would mean I would die anyways! At least this way everyone else will be fine.”

 

“There has to be another way,” Keith insisted.

 

“If you can figure it out before tomorrow, I’m all ears,” Lance admitted. “But for now… this is for the best.”

 

Behind Keith, Terrell scoffed. Right, she was still there. “What exactly do you owe the planet?”

 

“It’s not about owing anyone anything!” Lance snapped. “So don’t try to shove your selfish ideals on me.”

 

“I’m just saying, you want to live, right?”

 

“It doesn’t matter what I want, now go away, both of you, especially you Keith, if they find you here you’re sure to get fired. Terrell, frankly, I don’t care what happens to you, just leave.”

 

“I’m not leaving without you,” Keith said sternly.

 

“Keith--”

 

“I don’t care what sort of noble idea you have stuck in your head, there has to be another way--if you come with me I promise we’ll find it, but please don’t do this!”

 

Lance’s frown deepened. “This seems awfully familiar…”

 

“What?”

 

“You really forgot that quickly?”

 

Before Keith could answer, Lance shook his head and stood. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter anymore anyways. Just go--”

 

He stopped short, and Keith whipped around to find a full squad of Bureau workers crowding the doorway. How had they gotten here without Keith noticing?!

 

“Terrell,” the older one at the front said with a stern expression. “I thought we agreed that we’d leave each other be after this?”

 

An agreement…?

 

Terrell shrugged. “What can I say? You have your intentions, I have mine.”

 

Before anyone could react, lightning filled the room, blinding everyone. Keith tried to stumble towards her anyways. He was positively livid, and not just with Terrell, but with himself as well. He’d known better than to trust her, had known that she might pull something like this! Keith tried to do something, anything that might at least slow her down as his vision returned, but when he tried to call upon his power it felt dull, weak.

 

“Stay back!” Terrell commanded, her fist full of lightning. With her other hand she had a vice grip on Lance’s arm.

 

The Bureau workers froze, but Keith was not about to be so easily cowed. He made as though to rush her, hostage or no.

 

“I said, stay back!” she shouted, her words resonating with as much force as her lightning.

 

It was such that it stopped Keith in his tracks, unable to take even one more step, much as he tried. He forced himself forward anyways. The weight of Terrell’s gaze was a physical thing, trying to force him down, but he refused to go, not now, and certainly not while she still had Lance. She snarled, furious at his resistance.

 

“Down!” she barked.

 

Keith’s knees hit the floor painfully. It was like an entire world was pressing down on his back, forcing him to the ground. He couldn’t go, he wouldn’t go--

 

“Stay down,” Terrell said, her tone lower but no less commanding. “Believe it or not I don’t actually want to hurt you, but if you get in my way I will not hesitate.”

 

Beside her, Lance tried to wrench himself away from her. “Let him go!”

 

“No can do,” she said. “Now, as for what I want from you…”

 

“Terrell, whatever you’re doing, stop--” the older Bureau worker began, only to be cut off when Terrell blasted the area just above the doorway, bringing rubble and dust tumbling down and blocking the doorway. All the while, her command over Keith held strong, too strong for him to break through.

 

“Don’t--don’t hurt him,” Keith grunted through his teeth.

 

“No promises,” Terrell said as Lance became increasingly more resistant.

 

She spun him by his arm and slammed him into a wall hard enough to knock the wind from him. He didn’t even get a chance to recover before she threw him to the ground and dropped a knee to his chest. She looked immensely pleased with herself.

 

“Your luck really does switch around each other, just as I thought!” she cackled gleefully. “I would probably never be able to take you down if he wasn’t here--”

 

She turned to Keith with a wicked gleam in her eyes. “Keith, wasn’t it? Thank you so much for your cooperation, you’ve been a big help!”

 

“No, stop--!” Keith wheezed, but whatever she’d done to him was not about to be broken.

 

She had Lance pinned down, and bent over to whisper something in his ear. Lance’s eyes widened, his brow furrowing with either confusion or concern--perhaps both. For a moment, nothing happened, and even Terrell’s self-satisfied grin seemed to slip. Lance opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a sharp gasp. Then he began to writhe as though in pain, still held down by Terrell. Keith struggled against his unseen bindings, heart hammering a bruise against his ribs. Terrell was smiling in earnest again. Still the three of them were silent as death, even Lance.

 

And then Lance began to scream. The sound was like a knife to Keith’s already harried heart, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it, struggle as he might. It was on Lance’s arms that Keith first noticed it, a trail of light drawn along his skin and spreading. It almost reminded Keith of celestial thread, except that this was a golden color, following the pattern of Lance’s veins as though his very blood was being set on fire. All the while he screamed and screamed, and Keith was certain the sound would chase him in his nightmares.

 

Then, just when it looked as though the golden light would consume Lance entirely, it began to spread to Terrell. Or, more accurately, it looked as though she was absorbing it from where her hands held Lance down. As the light went from him to her, Lance’s shrieks subsided--Keith couldn’t decide whether that was better or worse. Once Terrell had taken what seemed to be all the light from Lance’s body, he went slack under her, and his eyes fluttered shut. Keith redoubled his efforts to get free. Behind him, the Bureau workers had very nearly broken through the debris.

 

They were all too late. Terrell stood over Lance’s body, glowing as Lance had but with none of the agonizing pain. Keith wished for nothing more than for her to suffer as she’d made Lance suffer, or better yet worse. With agonizing effort, Keith pressed up against the command that kept him on his knees, his muscles straining and feeling as though they might just snap. Slowly, his entire body shaking, Keith pushed himself up to his feet.

 

“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” Terrell mused with a tilt of her head. The light was dying down now, but Terrell’s energy was different now, far more potent. Far more dangerous.

 

“You really think you can tell me what to do?” Keith spat.

 

Terrell sniffed. “I know I can.”

 

Before Keith could even blink, he was blasted through a wall. He hadn’t even realized it had happened until he reoriented himself in a hole in the wall. Everything was too bright, too loud, too much of everything. Terrell stood before him, every bit the victorious villain.

 

“If you were nothing before, you’re less than that now,” she told him. “Know your place, little wanderer.”

 

The air suddenly became searing hot. A flash of light that somehow wasn’t lightning flooded the room, and when Keith could see again, Terrell had disappeared. He slammed his fist on the remains of the wall around him. Terrell had played him like a fiddle, and Keith, fool that he was, had played right along with her. He could only hope that Lance hadn’t paid the price for Keith’s stupidity.

 

He stumbled over to Lance, relieved to find him still breathing, and indeed he regained consciousness as soon as Keith knelt down beside him. He looked even more exhausted than he had before, his face ashen. He swore softly, letting his head fall to the side, facing away from Keith.

 

“What? What’s wrong?” Keith asked.

 

“If we couldn’t stop Terrell before, we’re going to have a hell of a time stopping her now,” Lance explained, pressing a hand to his temple.

 

Keith frowned. “Why? What did she wish for?”

 

Lance turned back to him, his eyes filled to the brim with grim understanding.

 

“She wished for the power of the sun,” he said, quietly. “And her wish came true."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try and crack down on this fic so I can maybe (that's a big maybe) get it done before season 8 comes out? We'll see, but I'll do my best!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting real close to the end.... This chapter is essentially a set up for the end so uh. Buckle up to learn yourself some things.

“She--so you--?” Keith stammered.

 

Lance shook his head, pushing himself up. “I don’t know, but what matters now is that she’s way more powerful than any human being should be, and we still have no idea what she wants to do with that power! We have to go after her!”

 

Lance stood, only to stumble over his feet and fall right into Keith’s arms. Behind them, the Bureau workers sounded like they were calling backup. Keith wasn’t sure if they’d seen what had just happened, but he had no doubt that they weren’t about to give Lance up so easily, even in the interest of stopping Terrell. Still, there was something that Keith did need from them.

 

Securing Lance beside him, he marched over to the older worker, the one who looked to be in charge.

 

“You said you made an agreement with Terrell,” Keith stated. “What was it?”

 

“That--that’s classified--!”

 

“I don’t give a damn, whatever it was got us into this mess in the first place, so tell me what it was!”

 

The man looked torn between refusing and relenting to Keith’s demand. In the end, he chose the latter.

 

“She contacted us first. Said she knew where the sun was, and would tell us if we agreed to a few things, the man explained quickly. “Skeptical as we were, we had to at least follow the lead, especially given that it was Terrell of all people. All she asked was that we downsize our department beforehand, and that we leave her alone once we had the sun. She said that, after all, Jupiter isn’t as crucial as the sun, so what harm was there in letting her go? We agreed, and she told us that the sun was one of our own workers--and he is!”

 

“Or was, anyways,” Lance mumbled.

 

“What do you mean? What did she do?”

 

“She wished for the power of the sun,” Lance said.

 

“That--” The man decided that he was suddenly done with being confused and out of control of the situation. His expression hardened and his tone became decisive. “This changes nothing, save for the fact that we must bring Terrell in, given that she violated the terms of our agreement. You’ll stay here, albeit in a different office.”

 

“Thanks, but no thanks, it’s clear to me that you guys can’t be trusted to deal with Terrell--” Lance started scathingly.

 

The old man bristled and cut him off. “You will be staying here! And you!” he snapped, turning his attention to Keith. “I know I’ve seen you around before, so rest assured you’ll be lucky to even be cleaning the floors around here after this!”

 

Keith was hardly bothered by the threat, but they would need to find a way past all these workers, and the inevitable back up (probably keepers) they’d called. Lance was still leaning heavily on him, legs shaking with fatigue. There was no way they could fight their way out of this one. Keith regarded the setting. The broom he’d flown in on was buried under the rubble of Terrell’s attack, which meant that they wouldn’t be able to follow Terrell out of the hole in the ceiling she’d created for her dramatic exit. The only other option was to push their way through all these people.

 

He held Lance a little closer. “Stay close to me,” he whispered.

 

With a deep breath, Keith reached out with his power once again. It swelled weakly, strained from more use in the last few hours than in his entire life. The shadows rose all the same, and quickly plunged not only the room, but the hallway as well, into a solid darkness. Beside him, Lance gasped, reminding Keith that he hadn’t told Lance that he wasn’t quite human either. There would be time for that later, Keith decided. In the meantime, his attention was on the people blocking their path, who were now thrown into a borderline panic at their sudden loss of sight.

 

The first three or four of the group blindly stumbled forward, realizing that this was a ploy for escape. Keith evaded them easily. Some of the group towards the rear had broken off and were stumbling back towards the main department, where Keith was certain his power had not yet reached. Gripping Lance tightly, he charged through the few that were left in the hallway, knocking them down with extreme prejudice. A few hands grabbed at him and Lance, but such was their confusion that they slipped right off of them.

 

They burst out of the darkness to find the few that had broken away from the shadows waiting for them, along with a squad of keepers. With a grunt, Keith plunged the much larger area into black pitch. He wouldn’t be able to hold it for long, he knew. And what about when they reached a bigger area? He could make them invisible in the shadows, but that required them to be unseen in the first place. 

 

“What’s up?” Lance whispered when he noticed that Keith had paused in their escape.

 

Keith explained the problem to Lance as best he could, and Lance hummed quietly. It was lucky for them everyone hadn’t thought to quiet down and listen instead of look.

 

“What if we made them think we escaped?” Lance suggested. “Not only is there a back exit through this department, but there’s also a separate, smaller broom closet within this department. I don’t know if they’d cleared it out yet, but it’s worth checking out.”

 

“Even if it is, my place isn’t that far,” Keith added.

 

“Right. So what we do is we hide ourselves under a desk or something, and then you let the light come back, they don’t see us and think we’ve escaped, and they’ll all run out trying to find us.”

 

Keith nodded before remembering that Lance was likely just as blind as everyone else and saying, “Alright, sounds good.”

 

The plan worked as seamlessly as Lance had made it sound, especially given that they were practically invisible. Everyone was yelling angrily, panicking and squeezing out the doors together in an effort to catch a target they couldn’t see. Within moments, the department was dead silent. Even so, they waited a few moments before emerging from their hiding place, Keith not yet releasing his hold on the shadows that cloaked them. Once they determined the coast was clear, however, he dropped his power with a sigh of relief.

 

Lance eyed him curiously as they made their way towards the department’s broom closet.

 

“So… I’m guessing you’re a planet too?” he ventured.

 

Keith nodded.

 

“How long have you known?”

 

“About as long as I’ve known you were the sun,” Keith answered. “That is, only a few months.”

 

They were silent as they discovered that the broom closet had indeed been cleared out. Lance was far from dressed for the weather--he didn’t even have any shoes, but what other choice did they have? With Lance’s direction, they hurried to a small, back exit, slipping out without a sound. They both agreed that it would be safer to take a back way to Keith’s apartment, for all that it would take a few minutes longer. Lance assured Keith that he would be able to stand the cold for a few minutes longer if it meant they wouldn’t be caught.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lance asked when they were about halfway there.

 

“Cause you told me yourself that you’d do exactly this,” Keith answered. “You’d give yourself up to save the world--I didn’t want that.”

 

“Why?”

 

Keith blinked and looked at Lance. “Why would I not want that? Lance--”

 

“You told me you don’t love me,” Lance interrupted. “And you told Allura you don’t care--yeah, she told me about that conversation--so if you don’t care, why go through all this trouble?”

 

“Well,” Keith fumbled, looking for the right words as he peered around a corner to make sure the street leading to his apartment building was clear of Bureau workers. His face felt red hot with shame. “First of all, what I said to Allura was a lie. I do care Lance, I just--I guess I didn’t want to care. Does that make sense?”

 

“I think so,” Lance mused. Then he shook his head, saying, “Talk about melodramatic though.”

 

“Yeah, I’m… not proud of the things I said, to you, or Allura, or anyone else.”

 

“Was what you told me a lie too?”

 

Keith was silent as they trudged up the stairs, hoping that the fact that he was still helping Lance to stand would serve as an adequate excuse for his hesitation. Even now he still felt drawn to Lance--did that mean he was truly still the sun? After all, Terrell had only asked for the powers of the sun, not to be the sun. Was there a difference?

 

He helped Lance to sit on the couch once they were safely inside. Lance’s gaze was expectant. Keith went to turn up the heat.

 

“Keith?”

 

Keith didn’t look at Lance as he said, “Honestly Lance? I have no idea.”

 

“How do you not know?”

 

“Because!” Keith huffed, turning around. “I’m not good at this emotional stuff! I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with someone before, and the one time I think I might be, it turns out he’s the sun and I’m a planet and I’m supposed to be drawn to him anyways! Tell me, Lance, where do you think gravity ends and love begins? In our case, do you think there’s even a difference?!”

 

Keith stood a ways away, breathing hard. Lance sat in stunned silence. His eyes were wide and did not once waver. Keith looked away, suddenly embarrassed. He mumbled an apology and made to get some socks and a sweater for Lance.

 

Before he could leave the living room, Lance asked, “Well, what do you want Keith?”

 

Keith paused briefly. “That doesn’t matter right now.”

 

He left before Lance could say anything more, but when he returned, Lance was frowning.

 

“Why would you say it doesn’t matter what you want?” Lance prodded gently.

 

“It doesn’t, that’s why,” Keith said, holding out the clothing for Lance, who eagerly pulled it all on. Even with the heat on, he was still shivering. “We’ve got more important things to worry about right now, like a person that has the power of Jupiter and the sun.”

 

“And who do you mean when you say ‘we’?” Lance inquired, raising an eyebrow.

 

Keith opened and closed his mouth, fishing for an answer.

 

“Me… and you?” he offered slowly.

 

Based on Lance’s expression, Keith guessed that that was the wrong answer.

 

“Sure, we’ll be part of it, but there’s no way we can take Terrell on with just the two of us. We need the other planets. Do you still have your star?”

 

Keith nodded, pulling it out of his pocket. It was dormant now, shining and settled like any other star. Only now Keith knew he only had to say the word and it would take him wherever he wanted. In theory, anyways. He hadn’t exactly had time to test the limits of it yet. He didn’t even know why it acted as a convenient sort of compass for him, only that it did, and only when asked, whether directly or indirectly.

 

“Do you suppose it’ll take us to people we haven’t met?” Keith wondered, holding it up by the cord.

 

Lance shrugged. “No idea, but maybe we’ve already met them. I mean, I am the sun, and you mentioned that gravity might still be a thing between me and the planets, so maybe they just kind of--I don’t know--ended up nearby? One way to find out I guess.”

 

“Alright… who should we try to find first?”

 

“Let me think…” Lance said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “If we go by the idea that size correlates with power… we might want to find Saturn first--also, which planet are you?”

 

“No idea, but I guess through process of elimination we’ll find out, won’t we?” Keith replied. He held the star near to his face, as though it needed to be close to hear him. “Take us to Saturn.”

 

It didn’t respond immediately as it had when Keith had asked to find Terrell. Perhaps they really did have to know who they were looking for in order to be guided to them. Keith and Lance glanced nervously at each other--what would they do if it didn’t work?--but then the flask began to sway gently, like a pendulum set to ticking. It started so subtly that Keith thought it was his own unsteady hand causing the movement. But the arc of the swing only grew, until it stopped mid-air, pointing solidly in one direction.

 

They had their heading.

 

Unfortunately, a problem arose as they prepared to leave. Lance had no shoes, and Keith’s were too small for him to borrow. Not to mention that neither of them had brooms, and they had no idea how near or far Saturn would be. There was also, Lance pointed out when Keith had to stifle a huge yawn, that it was very early in the morning, and Keith had yet to get any sleep.

 

“We can’t stay here for too long,” Keith argued when Lance suggested they wait before setting out. “The Bureau is going to search our homes when they can’t find us.”

 

“My place is farther, at least, and my sister always has a few spare brooms lying around. She can bring us brooms and a pair of my shoes,” Lance said.

 

Which reminded Keith-- “Your sister!” he gasped, fishing around in his pockets for that slip of paper she’d given him.

 

Lance, meanwhile, looked confused. “Yeah? That’s what I said?”

 

Keith made a mad dash for his phone once he’d found the slip of paper, and then shoved both towards Lance.

 

“She came by yesterday, looking for you. She gave me her number and told me to call if anything came up.”

 

Lance took the phone and dialed his sister’s number. Only seconds later, Lance sheepishly greeted Veronica, and from what Keith could hear, she was equal parts relieved and furious. Lance tried in vain to get in a word through the veritable stream of Spanish being hurled at him (Veronica could be loud when she wanted). Lance let her go on like that for a few minutes, quickly realizing that she just needed to get it out of her system. He replied to her in Spanish, of which Keith thought he could pick up a few words here and there, but ultimately did not understand. And then Veronica began to yell again, causing Lance to heave an impatient sigh. Then, just as quickly as the rapidfire conversation had begun, it ended, and Lance handed the phone back to Keith.

 

“She’s on her way,” Lance told him. “It won’t take her too long, she’s a fast flier--faster than even you, I’d say.”

 

“She didn’t sound too happy,” Keith commented idly.

 

Lance waved a hand dismissively. “I was gone for two days, she was just worried. She’s always been like that, probably cause in our family me and her are closest in age, only she’s just a little older than me so I guess she feels like I’m her responsibility or something? It’s honestly annoying more often than not, but I can always rely on her when I need her most, so…”

 

He trailed off with a shrug, but his expression was fond and nostalgic. Then he clapped his hands together abruptly, saying that Keith needed some sleep, even if it was just a quick power nap. Keith resisted at first, which prompted Lance to shove Keith all the way into his bedroom and onto his bed. Once he was lying down, however, the weight of fatigue was all too apparent. Lance settled himself right beside Keith, assuring him that he would wake him as soon as Veronica arrived. Even so, the possibility that the Bureau might come breaking down the door at any minute kept Keith on edge. He didn’t even begin to relax, tired as he was, until Lance began running his fingers through Keith’s hair.

 

“You know, I thought you said my hair was dumb,” Keith mumbled, winding the cord of his flask tightly around his hand so as to not let it slip away. “You seem to like it an awful lot.”

 

“It is dumb,” Lance replied. “And so are you.”

 

Keith sighed, letting his eyes fall closed. “Yeah, I am. I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

“It’s not. I’ve been a jerk these past few months, all because I was scared. You’re not the only one I need to apologize to, you know.”

 

“I know,” Lance said, his tone gentle. “But for now you need to sleep.”

 

Keith hummed, and sleep swiftly took him.

 

He dreamed that strange dream again, the one that was well and truly a dream and out of his control. That sense of anticipation was there again, only this time Keith wasn’t skeptical, but rather curious. The wandering points of light were gathering close, and he along with them. The whispering was there again, using voices Keith thought he recognized but couldn’t quite place. All of them were excited for something, and Keith found that he was excited too, but he knew not for what. All of the excitement, however, seemed to be centered around a single, pale blue dot that Keith could hardly see. It was special, he knew, and had been for some time… but why?

 

Keith awoke with a violent start when someone started banging at the door. Beside him, Lance launched himself off the bed to go greet whoever it was. Keith checked the time to find that he’d only slept for half an hour at best. He gripped the flask tightly in his hand and rolled out of bed after Lance, worried still that it might be the Bureau. Lance had already opened the door by the time Keith trudged down the hallway, but to his immense relief, it was indeed Veronica, with three brooms and a duffel bag in hand. Her gaze was no less sharp than it had been when Keith had first met her.

 

“You want to tell me what’s going on now?” she demanded of Lance, who suddenly looked as though he was trying to swallow a rock. 

 

“Not… really?” Lance offered in a squeaky voice.

 

Veronica opened her mouth, looking supremely unamused, but Keith interrupted.

 

“It’s just--!” he started a bit louder than he’d intended. He continued in a more reasonable tone, “It’s just that it’s a little difficult to explain and we’re worried you wouldn’t even believe us.”

 

Veronica looked slightly mollified, but Lance looked appalled. He hurried over to Keith to whisper urgently to him.

 

“You’re not actually planning on telling her just like that, are you? After all this time of keeping it a secret from all your friends?!”

 

“Well, look where that got me,” Keith replied in an equally low tone. “Not to mention, she’s your sister, and it doesn’t look like she’s going to back off until she knows what’s going on.”

 

Lance huffed. “I hate that you’re right, but you said yourself we can’t stay here for too long.”

 

Keith nodded and turned to Veronica, who was waiting with crossed arms. “We’ll tell you, but not here, we can’t stay here too much longer.”

 

“Why not?” she demanded.

 

“Because--” Lance started, only to be cut off by an insistent knocking on the door.

 

Keith pressed his lips together tightly and motioned for the others to remain silent. He grabbed Lance and gestured for Veronica to come close. She hesitated, confused and concerned, for a second too long. Keith shoved himself and Lance into a shady corner just as the door burst open to a squad of keepers. Veronica looked back and forth between where she had just seen Keith and her brother disappear, and the workers who had so rudely intruded.

 

“Can I help you?” she asked, regaining her composure quickly.

 

The leader of the group motioned for the others to search the place. 

 

“We’re looking for Keith Kogane--who are you?” the leader demanded.

 

“Veronica McClain,” Veronica said politely, though still with an edge.

 

“Do you know where Keith is?”

 

Veronica shook her head. “No, ma’am, he was here a few hours ago, but he left and never said when he’d be back.”

 

From the shadows, Keith resisted the urge to tell Lance that his sister’s acting skills were superb. Talk about remaining cool under pressure.

 

Meanwhile, the other keepers returned from their brief search (it was a small apartment, after all), and all shook their heads. Their leader scowled, and turned her attention back to Veronica, briskly handing her a card.

 

“Call us if you see him.”

 

“Is he in trouble?”

 

The lead keeper frowned. “That remains yet to be seen, but suffice to say he took something very important from the Bureau, something incredibly essential. That’s all I can say, but I assure you if you try to hide him it won’t turn out well for you.”

 

The leader then did her own sweep of the living room, eyeing everything with a critical gaze. Once she came dangerously close to where Lance and Keith were hidden, clinging tightly to each other and holding their breaths. Finally, she sighed, deciding that there was nothing to be found there. With an unnecessary flourish, the keeper and her team marched out of the apartment as quickly as they’d broken in, not even bothering to close the door behind them. Veronica watched them leave, and once they disappeared from her sight she closed the door as best she could (it was broken now, much to Keith’s dismay), and then whirled around to face where she had last seen Keith and Lance looking positively livid.

 

“Any chance we could just stay hidden like this until she’s less likely to kill us?” Lance whispered to Keith, so close to his ear that it made him shiver.

 

“I can hear you,” Veronica growled. “And if you don’t tell me what’s going on right now, I swear, I’ll--”

 

She gasped when Keith and Lance reappeared as if out of thin air, but quickly resumed her aggressive posture. Whatever threat she had in mind, Keith had no doubt she would follow through if she didn’t get answers.

 

“The reason I was gone for two days,” Lance began. “The Bureau had me. Keith broke me out and brought me here.”

 

Veronica paused, looking back and forth between the two of them. “Why did the Bureau essentially kidnap you? They didn’t arrest you, did they?”

 

Lance shook his head. “No, they had me because… well…”

 

“Because Lance is the sun,” Keith blurted.

 

Veronica rolled her eyes. “That’s very romantic and all, but--”

 

“No, he’s right,” Lance interrupted. “When the sun, moon, and planets fell to the earth, they didn’t manifest in the same way that stars do. They became human--and I’m the sun. If they were to put me back into the sky, the whole planet would be saved… and I was going to let them.”

 

There was a moment of silence as Veronica processed this information. Her expression was initially confounded, then astounded, and then back to being angry. Beside him, Lance shuffled nervously.

 

“You,” Veronica started in a grave tone. “Were going to give yourself up? Just like that?”

 

“Veronica, the planet is dying! It needs the sun, and if I don’t, then I’ll just die along with everyone else!” Lance argued.

 

Veronica swore, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Lance, you self-sacrificing moron, did it ever occur to you that there might be another way?”

 

“Do you know another way?”

 

“Of course not! But, Lance, you can’t just go throwing yourself away like that!” she shouted.

 

Lance was about to make a retort, but Keith cut in, “Much as I agree with Veronica, we can’t just sit around here.”

 

“Why not? They already think you’re not here, which, by the way, how did you do that?” Veronica inquired.

 

“It’s, uh, a bit involved. We’ll tell you on the way?” Lance offered.

 

Keith dropped the flask that had been pressed tightly in his palm all this time. The star was still straining against the glass, pointing them in the direction it wanted them to go in. It raised more questions from Veronica, questions that they weren’t really able to answer. Lance threw on the shoes that Veronica had brought for him, and several jackets, and they were about to leave when a third visitor knocked on the now broken door, causing it to fall flat on the floor.

 

Shiro, to his credit, looked only mildly surprised. His eyes found Keith quickly.

 

“What’s this I hear about you being a fugitive from the Bureau?”

 

Apparently Shiro had gone in to work, early as usual, to find everything in a complete state of upheaval. He’d been accosted by a squad of keepers and questioned intensely about Keith and his possible whereabouts. Now that Keith had forgone secrecy, he wanted to tell Shiro everything, but it was as they’d already determined. They didn’t have time to stand around and explain every single detail. Shiro, it seemed, would have to go with them to find Saturn.

 

Unfortunately, Shiro lived almost as close as Keith did to the Bureau, and had no need of a broom for transportation, which meant that they had to figure something out if he was to go along with them. Ultimately he opted to exercise brotherly authority over Keith, which ended up meaning that Keith would share with Lance. How that was decided was beyond Keith himself, but he decided not to dispute it. They’d already wasted enough time. It was time to find Saturn.

 

They prepared themselves for a bit of a trek, not knowing how far Saturn would be. They took off, guided by Keith’s star--only to be led directly back to the Bureau. It was buzzing like a hive of angry bees, but the star pointed solidly towards the building. Keith grimaced.

 

“Figures,” he muttered. He was already thinking of how best to sneak back in, exhausted as he was from using his powers, when Shiro held out his hand.

 

“Let me find whoever it is. I’m supposed to be coming back from my break soon anyways,” Shiro explained.

 

Reluctantly, Keith handed over the star. He trusted Shiro more than anyone in the world, but he hated dragging him into this mess like this. Not to mention, there was nothing for the rest of them to do but wait as he searched the building as discreetly as possible. Nothing, except explain the whole fiasco to Veronica, who was still clamoring for answers. They explained everything they knew so far, admitting that there were still many things they didn’t know. Like what Terrell’s true objectives were, for instance. What could she possibly want to do with that much power?

 

When Shiro returned, it was much sooner than expected, and with someone in tow. What was more, it wasn’t an unfamiliar face.

 

“Hunk?!” Lance was the first to gasp.

 

“The star went slack after I practically ran into him, so I assume that he’s who we’re looking for,” Shiro explained.

 

Hunk, meanwhile, looked alarmed and bewildered. Keith assumed he’d heard the news just the same as Shiro. They made a quick explanation that only seemed to perplex him more.

 

“You’re saying… I’m a planet?” he clarified. “That--no, no way.”

 

“The star said so,” Keith said.

 

“Maybe the star was wrong? I mean, I’ll help you anyways, crazy as it sounds to go after Terrell now that she’s gotten an upgrade to her powers, but seriously--even if I was a planet, I don’t think I’d be Saturn, you know?” Hunk rambled.

 

“The star hasn’t steered us wrong so far,” Lance said. “We shouldn’t stick around here for too long, not with the place crawling with Bureau workers.”

 

Hunk sighed resignedly. “We can hide out at my place for a bit, just let me clock out first?”

 

Half an hour later found them all crammed into the apartment Hunk shared with Pidge, who was quite puzzled by this sudden intrusion, but very open-minded to the idea that Hunk was a planet and Lance was the sun. It was then that Keith realized that, in spite of her revelation, it seemed that Pidge hadn’t told a single person that he, too, was a planet, for which he was grateful. 

 

“So now we have Saturn and… am I even still the sun?” Lance mused aloud. “Keith is a planet but we don’t know which one--”

 

“What about Shiro and Veronica?” Pidge inquired eagerly. “If we’re going off the idea that all the planets are close to Lance in some way, wouldn’t it make sense if they were planets too? And me?”

 

“I--” Keith started hesitantly, regarding each of them with a critical eye. Keith was still getting used to the concept of being a planet and being able to sense others--how did Terrell manage to not only sense Lance but correctly reason that he was the sun, just from one chance glance?

 

“I honestly have no idea,” Keith finally admitted. “If we had more time I might be able to tell, but otherwise we’ll just have to use this star.”

 

Pidge peered at the star curiously. “You said this star has been guiding you?”

 

Keith nodded.

 

“Strange…” she muttered. “I’ve never seen a star behave like that… Hunk?”

 

Hunk shook his head. “Me neither, although I did once hear about a star found in the southern hemisphere that acted like this--more like a compass than a wish-granter.”

 

“Interesting,” Pidge noted. “In any event, whether I’m a planet or not, I’m coming to help too.”

 

“Pidge--” Lance started.

 

But Pidge was already decided. “You can’t stop me, so don’t even try.”

 

“Fine. Who are we looking for next then?” Lance relented. “After Jupiter and Saturn… was it Uranus or Neptune that was bigger?”

 

“Uranus,” Hunk and Pidge answered together.

 

Pidge grinned. “At least, by diameter. Neptune was more dense than Uranus, so while it was slightly smaller, it was also heavier.”

 

“So essentially it’s a toss up as to which one we should go after first,” Shiro commented.

 

“We could just go in the order of the solar system,” Hunk suggested with a shrug.

 

“We are going to try to find all of them eventually, right?” Veronica pointed out. “So in the end it doesn’t matter, so long as we stop wasting time and just do it.”

 

Everyone agreed, and looked to Keith with his guiding star. He took a deep breath and willed it to guide them to Uranus. He thought that it was simply gathering it’s bearings, as it had when he’d asked it to take them to Saturn, but even after a full minute nothing happened.

 

“Do you suppose it can only guide us so many times?” Lance questioned, studying the star as though looking for an answer within it’s light.

 

Keith hummed, uncertain. “Alright then, take us to Neptune.”

 

This time, the flask began to swing almost immediately, seeming eager to take them where they wanted to go. It was Veronica who figured out what that must mean.

 

“Uranus is one of us,” she announced just as Pidge was opening her mouth to say the same.

 

Pidge beat her to the next conclusion though. “It’s Shiro! It’s got to be Shiro!”

 

Hunk hummed in agreement. “Yeah, I can see that, that makes sense.”

 

Shiro, meanwhile, was stunned, but he shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

 

“Now let’s get moving,” Veronica urged them. “We don’t know who Neptune is or where they might be, but we can’t bank on all the planets nearby. Do you guys have any spare brooms?”

 

Within moments they were in the air again, following the light of their guiding star. Keith was once again sharing with a broom with Lance, shivering not from the cold as he seemed to register how tightly Lance was pressed against his back every few moments. Lance was no less warm than he’d always been. What part of that was the sun? Keith wondered. And what part was just Lance himself? Keith found himself hoping that there would be time to sort that all out later. And if there wasn’t, he had a feeling Lance would make time.

 

He braced himself for a longer journey as soon as they left the city limits, plunging into darker skies with only a single, dim little star to light their way. Behind him, Hunk was still debating his status as Saturn (“I feel like maybe, Venus? Or, hey, maybe even the moon would be an alright fit for me, I think,” he suggested over the whip of the winds.), while Pidge and Veronica argued in favor of it (“Saturn was named for the Roman adaptation of the Greek Titan Cronus,” Veronica said. “Wasn’t he associated with time? Does that mean Hunk has the ability to control time?!” Pidge suggested enthusiastically. “Actually that would be kind of cool,” Hunk could barely be heard saying.)

 

Their ragtag group sailed over dimly lit suburbs, only occasionally spotting Bureau workers in the course of their duties. None of them spared their group a second glance, but Keith held his breath every time. Being spotted could be dangerous for them, even as their numbers were growing. They had three confirmed planets among them, with only one of them having a handle on the powers their planet-hood granted them (however precariously). Then there was Lance, who they weren’t sure if he was still the sun, but even if he had the powers Terrell had stolen from him, Keith was still the only one able to consciously use his powers. Keith found himself hoping that Hunk somehow did have the ability to manipulate time, if only so they could have more of it. Facing Terrell as they were would be a foolhardy move, but what choice did they have?

 

It could’ve been an hour, or several, but by the time the star guided them downwards, even Keith felt the chill of the air. Lance was clinging to him in a weak attempt to dispel the cold, his arms wrapped around Keith’s torso in a vice grip. Keith hoped that whoever Neptune was, they had a home in which they could warm themselves. Unfortunately, it seemed as though that wouldn’t be the case as they were led to a shadowy, seemingly abandoned warehouse district.

 

They were just about to touch down when Shiro shouted, “From the rear!”

 

No sooner had he warned the rest of them than they were being dive-bombed by a pair of Bureau workers in altitude masks. Keith didn’t spare any thought to it. It didn’t matter that their group outnumbered them, what mattered was that they’d been spotted.

 

“Scatter! Lose them!” he commanded.

 

But then Lance stopped them, shouting, “Wait, wait!”

 

The two Bureau workers, who had dove right past them, were circling around to meet their group again, but this time Keith realized they were far from being a threat, especially as they ripped off their altitude masks.

 

Threat or no, Allura looked far more intimidating than Keith had ever seen her. Her expression was dark as the skies above. Even Romelle, just behind her, looked mildly alarmed.

 

“Where,” she started dangerously, looking directly at Lance. “Have you been?!”

 

“Allura! It’s a bit--!” Lance began, only to be cut off almost immediately.

 

“Do you even know how worried sick I’ve been?! And what’s going on here?! Was I just not important enough to call once you were out of danger, or were you even in any danger at all? Was I--did you just--” Allura began to sputter, voice quavering dangerously.

 

Lance urged Keith to land, and everyone else followed suit, with Romelle guiding Allura gently down to the ground. Keith’s feet were hardly on the ground before Lance hopped off the broom, running towards Allura to sweep her up in a crushing hug. She was openly crying now, mumbling something that Keith couldn’t make out from where he stood. Lance murmured soft words of reassurance to her, patting her head soothingly and letting her cry her heart out. The rest of them shuffled a ways apart, so as to give them privacy.

 

“Do you think Allura might be the moon?” Pidge whispered to Veronica as they looked on.

 

“What on earth are you talking about?” Romelle asked before Veronica could reply.

 

Keith sighed deeply, but thankfully Pidge and Veronica took it upon themselves to explain the entire situation to them, with an occasional insight or two from Hunk. It left himself and Shiro on the sidelines of two very different conversations, and Keith became acutely aware of a conversation that he had to have with Shiro. He had told himself he would do it when there was time, but it seemed now, just before they found Neptune, was the time for discussion. Besides, what better time than the present?

 

“Hey,” Keith began hesitantly, grabbing Shiro’s attention. “I know this is long overdue, but--”

 

“It’s fine,” Shiro said.

 

Keith frowned. “It’s not fine and you know it. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

 

“You’re right--I guess what I meant was, I forgive you.”

 

“I haven’t even apologized yet.”

 

Shiro shrugged. “I know you mean it anyways. Besides, I think you were right.”

 

“Shiro--”

 

“It’s been over a year, Keith. We both know that I need to be moving on.”

 

“That still doesn’t mean I should’ve said what I said,” Keith insisted.

 

Meanwhile, the other conversations dissolved, and everyone began to drift back towards Keith. Shiro patted his shoulder.

 

“We can talk more later,” he assured Keith.

 

“Alright, let’s find Neptune!” Lance cheered, his arm slung around Allura’s shoulders. 

 

Keith nodded, and held up the star to light their way. It was hardly bright enough to cast any shadows. Keith urged everyone to stay close to him, so that he could lead them around any potential obstacles as they navigated the veritable maze of abandoned warehouses. The place was quiet, almost ghostly. Keith yawned, following the direction of the star in an absent manner. How long now had it been since he’d slept properly?

 

He blamed it on his lack of sleep that he hadn’t noticed the snatchers completely surround them until one of them was quite literally in his face. Keith stumbled back into the others, who had taken him very seriously when he’d told them to stay close. The snatcher in front of him swiped at the star, just as it went slack in the flask. Keith pursed his lips. He had a feeling it would take a lot to convince this stranger to join them in their endeavor, when they were already more likely to take Terrell’s side.

 

The snatchers were close around them, and creeping ever closer, until the one in front of Keith, whose face was completely obscured by his scarves, held up a hand, a silent order for them all to stop.

 

“Takashi?” the snatcher spoke hoarsely.

 

Keith froze. He glanced at Shiro, who looked petrified.

 

“Who’s Takashi?” Lance blurted. Half of their group glared at him, and he shrank back sheepishly. “It was a reasonable question…”

 

The snatcher removed the scarf from his face--it was like seeing a ghost, except he was real, but no less terrifying. Keith moved aside to let Shiro through. In what little light they had, Keith could see that Shiro was pale and shaking. He didn’t blame him.

 

“Adam?”

 

An errant breeze swept through the still moment. The snatcher, Adam, said nothing.

 

“You’ve been alive all this time?”

 

Still nothing. Then--

 

“You were never supposed to find me.”

 

The wind swirled around them. Shiro clenched his fists, a dangerous mix of emotions evident in his expression.

 

“Were things really that bad between us?” Shiro finally asked.

 

“Takashi--”

 

“You just thought it was better to just give up on us? Not even try to work things out?”

 

“You don’t understand--!”

 

The wind was whipping furiously, but it wasn’t until the rain began to fall that Keith began to realize what was happening. As Adam and Shiro began to shout in earnest, Keith shoved himself roughly between them.

 

“You need to stop!” he told told them. “Your powers are calling up a storm!”

 

Adam scowled. “Let’s go inside.”

 

Everyone, snatchers and planets alike, hurried inside to escape the coming storm. Even with their haste, everyone was thoroughly soaked by the time they ducked into the nearest warehouse, in which a veritable village of people were looking in concern towards the old and rattling windows, wondering if they would hold. The dim light of star-stuffed lanterns were hardly enough to keep the shadows at bay. The people looked with interest at these shivering newcomers, but asked no questions as Adam gestured them to a less populated part of the rundown warehouse.

 

There was a tense moment of silence, accusations and tangled emotions suspended in the air between Shiro and Adam. Keith wasn’t sure what he was feeling. He’d loved Adam just about as dearly as he had Shiro, even during the times they argued. Had it really gotten so bad that when Adam disappeared in that storm all that time ago, he thought it better to not return at all? Keith frowned, brows knit together. The Adam he remembered cared deeply about Shiro, to the point of being overbearing at times. What on earth could’ve possibly changed that?

 

“Why are you here?” Adam asked, breaking the delicate silence.

 

It seemed that more personal business would have to wait. It was too clear to Keith that Shiro wanted an explanation, a reason for why he had to grieve for an entire year while Adam had been alive and well all along. But Shiro, like Adam, was well practiced in the art of putting things aside. Keith wasn’t so sure if he’d be able to do the same in such a situation.

 

“This is going to sound crazy, but the short version is that the sun, moon, and planets became humans when they fell,” Shiro explained crisply. “One such person decided to take the power of the sun for herself, and we think that the best chance we have of stopping her is to gather everyone else together, and you, apparently, are one of those planets.”

 

Adam hardly batted an eye at the story. Keith wondered if he even believed it. Outside the wind howled with unbridled fury. The rain pounded mercilessly against the thin roof.

 

Adam sighed. “So Terrell actually managed to get her way, then?”

 

“You know about her?” Keith blurted, unable to contain himself any longer.

 

“Of course I do,” Adam scoffed, crossing his arms. “You aren’t in this line of business without at least knowing of her, or what she really is. She’s not exactly quiet about it.”

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lance cut in; Keith was amazed he’d lasted this long without butting in, but then, he was probably exhausted. “So you know about Terrell? You know that she’s Jupiter, and you just? Let her be?”

 

Adam shrugged. “It’s a mutual thing. We leave each other alone. Frankly I’m lucky that she’s so intent on being the only ‘special’ one in her own group, otherwise she probably would’ve tried to recruit me.”

 

“Recruit you--so you--?” Shiro started incredulously.

 

“Yes, Takashi. I know what I am. I’ve known ever since that storm.”

 

The wind rattled the battered warehouse insistently, an unspoken demand for an explanation. Adam sighed.

 

“You remember as well as I do, don’t you? We were searching over the ocean that day, arguing about something I can’t even remember now--”

 

“I had flown up towards the sky one too many times, according to you,” Shiro interrupted.

 

Adam fidgeted in a way that suggested he remembered all too well, for all his denial. “Right. Well--we were arguing, the wind picked up… and then the rain started. We got separated. The wind was too strong for me to go against, and I ended up falling off my broom and falling into the ocean. I should’ve died.”

 

Everyone shifted uneasily. Beside him, Keith felt Lance shuffle a little closer. Unthinking, he wrapped an arm around Lance; he was probably freezing.

 

“I didn’t, obviously,” Adam continued. “But I had no idea how long I was out for. While I was under, I had these dreams, only… they weren’t ordinary dreams. More like memories. Memories of a time before I was human, and somehow I knew they were true. I saw myself, and all of you--and I saw Terrell. She was the one that found me, before I came to.”

 

He paused, clasping his hands tightly together in front of him.

 

“She didn’t need to tell me what I already knew. All she wanted was some assurance that I’d stay out of her way. I thought about bringing her in, at first. Then she told me her story, about how the Bureau nearly did put her back in the sky even though she has a human form. She’s ambitious, but she’s also terrified.”

 

Lance blew a raspberry at that. “What does she have to be scared of?”

 

“Of dying, I suppose,” Adam suggested. “Or at least, the chance of it.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Either way, I agreed to stay out of her way. And if she really does have the power of the sun alongside Jupiter now, that’s what I intend to do,” Adam informed them decidedly.

 

The reaction was immediate, ranging from, “What?! How can you just sit idly by while Terrell does who knows what with all that power?” to “You really think she’ll hold up her end of the bargain?”

 

“Adam,” Shiro interjected through it all, his tone almost pleading. “Why?”

 

Adam’s expression was stern now. “A few reasons. She was already too powerful just as Jupiter. By the time I met her, she had precision control of her powers. A precision that I only barely have, and that I doubt any of you have in any capacity great enough to stop her.”

 

Everyone fidgeted under his knowing glare.

 

“She’s never gone back on her word to me, so I have no reason to think she’ll do so now, unless you think she intends to steal the powers of all the planets?”

 

To that, no one had an answer. Even now, they had no clue as to what Terrell truly intended to do.

 

Adam huffed. “You’re all on a fool’s errand. And for what? She could just very well want the power of the sun for the sake of having it. In case you haven’t noticed, there doesn’t seem to be anyone she truly cares about but herself.”

 

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try--” Allura started.

 

“Try to what? What do you want to do with her? Say you do manage to overpower her, by some miracle or other. Do you intend to kill her? Do what the Bureau failed to do all those years ago?” Adam demanded.

 

Allura recoiled. Lance pressed forward.

 

“She tried to kill Allura,” he stated. “And she killed those snatchers all those years ago. We know she’s capable of horrible things, and we know she’s capable of going back on her word. You say she doesn’t care about anyone but herself, but you still trust her enough to leave you out of this?”

 

“I have no reason to doubt her,” Adam insisted.

 

Near the back of the warehouse, a weary window shattered, allowing in the shrieking winds.

 

“I can’t believe this,” Shiro started, uncaring for the gale that threatened to bring the place down. “You’re just going to lie down and let her have her way, all because--what, you suddenly think snatching is a ludicrous business? Or is she just that important to you now?”

 

The sting of the accusation was apparent on Adam’s face, which promptly contorted into something like heartbroken rage.

 

“Don’t,” Adam started in a low tone. “Ever insinuate that you weren’t important to me. You were the most important person in my life, and it was because of that that I had to stay away!”

 

He gestured wildly to the shattered window. “When I found out I was Neptune, I found out you were Uranus--sea and sky, Takashi, doesn’t get much more opposite than that! I wanted to come back at first, more than anything, but do you see what happens when we’re even near each other? The Bureau would’ve found us both out, and they would’ve stitched us to the sky!”

 

“I don’t need you to protect me, Adam, I never did!” Shiro shouted.

 

“So I’m just not allowed to care about you anymore, is that it?!”

 

“That’s not what I--”

 

Shiro stopped abruptly. They all did. Even the other people in the warehouse who had been cowering from the storm and whispering in hushed tones fell still. Outside, the winds still howled, the rain still insistent against the questionable walls. Keith realized he was gripping too tightly to Lance and loosened his grip, only for Lance to press closer to him. For though there had been no sound save for that of wind and rain, a burst of light intense enough to dispel all shadows flashed outside. Only a few seconds later, it was followed by a rumble that shook the warehouse down to it’s crumbling foundation.

 

Terrell was coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading, and many many thanks to my darling beta readers (Julie and Angie), without whom this story just simply would not exist. Still hoping to crack down and either write two chapters before next week OR write one extra long chapter to end this story at 11 chapters instead of 12. We shall see. Fingers crossed y'all!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise y'all :)

There was not much time to waste. Adam’s first concern was for those people who had come to gather around him, fearful but willing to help. Shiro, Keith, and the others were unceremoniously shuffled to the side as Adam discussed what should be done. The storm outside was showing no signs of flagging. If Keith was any judge of it (and if Shiro’s expression was any indicator), it seemed as though the storm was only intensifying. He wondered vaguely how Adam intended to get so many people to safety in such a tempest.

 

Another flash of lightning. Thunder followed only two seconds later.

 

Adam waved his hand at the people who had come to deliberate with him, and turned towards Keith and the others. His expression was grim.

 

“We have to leave,” he said. “Terrell probably noticed this storm, and given that she has the power of the sun and Jupiter, I wouldn’t be surprised if she could sense us all being together. Whether I like it or not, I need to go with you.”

 

“I thought you trusted her to keep her word about leaving you alone?” Lance taunted.

 

“I said I had no reason to doubt her--that doesn’t mean I trusted her. I know that she’s… flighty, to say the least. Subject to her own whims. This whole time neither of us had had any reason to doubt the other, but now she likely knows that you’re all here with me, and unless I completely throw you all under the bus, she’s probably not going to believe that I’m not up in arms with you all,” Adam explained with a huff.

 

“That’s all well and fine,” Veronica began. “But are we really going to try flying through this storm?”

 

Adam considered that. “We should split up. At least temporarily.”

 

Allura leaned over to whisper something to Romelle, who nodded along. Everyone else looked at them expectantly.

 

Another flash of lightning. Only a second passed before thunder followed, less of a rumble than a crack. Time was running out.

 

“There’s a place Romelle and I both know,” Allura said. “If we do decide to split into two groups, we can each lead a group there.”

 

Both Adam and Shiro looked reluctant, though Keith was willing to bet it was for vastly different reasons. Shiro, to his credit, gathered himself with remarkable speed and divied up the group with brisk efficiency. Allura led the larger of the two groups, with Lance, Veronica, Pidge, and Shiro himself. Keith himself was reluctant to be splitting up the whole group--what if Terrell found one group? Whether they had control over their powers or not, there was safety in numbers.

 

Lightning flashed and was followed by thunder in less than a second. By then, they were ready to leave.

 

They stepped out into the swirl of wind and icy rain that stung. Romelle trounced over to Allura and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, abruptly reminding Keith that they were together. Romelle said something to Allura that Keith couldn’t make out through the sounds of the storm, but Allura smiled, so he assumed it must’ve been something soft and laced with love. A quick press of their lips, and the two of them parted, gesturing to their respective groups to follow them.

 

Romelle’s golden hair was like a shining beacon in the dark, making it all too easy for Keith, Hunk, and Adam to follow her. They flew in speedy silence, occasionally checking behind them to make sure they weren’t being followed. Around them, the storm began to dissipate. The sheets of rain faded to a drizzle, the gale withering to practically nothing. It left them damp and freezing, and Keith hoped that this secondary location that Allura and Romelle had thought of wasn’t too far.

 

Keith pulled up beside Romelle. “Where are we going?”

 

“A relative of Allura’s,” Romelle answered. “He lives in the countryside, so he’s a bit difficult to find unless you know where to look. Should be safe enough for us, hopefully at least long enough for us to dry out.”

 

Hunk pulled up on her other side, agreeing enthusiastically. “I had no idea all this planet business meant getting absolutely soaked. This is why I don’t like field work.”

 

He turned to looked back towards Adam, who was looking particularly downcast.

 

“Didn’t you say that you have some control over your powers?” Hunk asked him.

 

“Things get tricky when planets are near each other,” was all Adam said.

 

To that, Keith could agree. On that note, it was a miracle that the storm wasn’t worse with how many planets they’d managed to gather in one place. He drew back to fly beside Adam. His intention was to say something, anything, but he couldn’t manage to find the words to say. What did you even say to someone who let everyone that cared about them believe they were dead?

 

“Did you know I was a planet too?” Keith finally asked.

 

Adam nodded, but failed to elaborate. Noticing Keith’s frustration, Adam frowned. “What?”

 

“You could’ve let us know you were alright, at least.”

 

“We’ve been through this already,” Adam said. “You know, don’t you? That once you’re aware, your powers begin to manifest at an exponential rate. Before, they only manifest when you’re in a particularly volatile emotional state.”

 

“But you and Shiro had argued before--what made that argument so bad that the two of you accidentally called up a storm?” Keith inquired.

 

Adam grimaced. “I… suggested that maybe a relationship between us wouldn’t work after all.”

 

Keith said nothing for a moment, mouth agape with shock.

 

“You--but you guys--”

 

“Keith, I’ll admit, the idea was selfish on my part, but it wasn’t without reason. You know as well as I do how careless Shiro is--”

 

“Was,” Keith corrected. “After you disappeared, he took a supervising position. He hasn’t done field work since then.”

 

Adam scowled. “Figures. I’d been telling him to take that position for months before I disappeared. You know as well as I do how careless he was about his health.”

 

Keith nodded reluctantly.

 

“I hated seeing him treat himself the way he did,” Adam continued. “It’d keep me up for hours at night, worrying that he might take it too far one day--I couldn’t handle it. And when I found out what we are… I couldn’t--as much as I wanted to see him again, make sure he didn’t worry, I was too worried that he might think he had to go back in the sky, noble idiot that he is.”

 

“Sounds familiar,” Hunk joined in.

 

“What do you mean?” Adam asked, while Keith tried his very best to glare daggers at Hunk.

 

“Well,” Hunk began, very knowingly ignoring Keith. “Keith here found out that Lance was the sun, and that he’s a planet, and decided to shut us all out. He didn’t fake his death or anything, but he was pretty mean there for a while.”

 

Keith cringed. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I thought it was for the best, but I’ll admit that my methods were… bad.”

 

“To say the least,” Hunk added with a nod. “But I forgive you. I just wish your first thought hadn’t been to handle it all alone.”

 

Keith didn’t reply. He gazed down at the shadowy landscape that raced past them. He wondered if doing things differently might have delayed the inevitable. Even now, he didn’t think so. After all, it was Terrell who had triggered the onset of this mess. If it hadn’t been for her, who knew how long he might’ve been able to keep it secret. How long might he have lived alone?

 

Romelle had drawn back to join the conversation, if passively. She was still flying slightly ahead to lead the way, listening all the while.

 

“I think you were right to break up, in such a situation,” she suddenly said to Adam.

 

Keith blinked, a bit taken aback by the sudden change of subject. “What are you talking about?! You didn’t even know them when they were together--”

 

“Maybe not,” Romelle said. “But it sounds like Shiro was too focused on other things to care what sort of effect his actions were having on Adam. Certainly he should be allowed to live his own life, but if that life was only going to cause Adam pain, Adam had every right to leave. Although I’ll admit, faking your death was a bit extreme.”

 

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Adam objected.

 

Romelle snorted. “I know, I know. Still, I can see your reasoning. If Allura decided to wantonly throw herself into danger at every whim, I don’t know that I’d stick around to watch her crash and burn.”

 

“And not be there for her when she does?” Keith demanded. “If she were to, that is.”

 

Romelle shrugged. “Love is a complicated thing, but also not. It’s like a series of choices. There’s emotion involved of course, but… it’s a choice, ultimately. If Allura did something dangerous once, I’d ask her not to do it again, because I worry that she’ll get hurt. If she does it again, I ask her again. If she keeps doing it, regardless of how worried I become about her, she’s choosing to disregard how I feel. And if there’s no reason for her to be doing that, then…”

 

She shrugged again. Keith, meanwhile, was frowning.

 

“I don’t understand,” he admitted.

 

“I think Romelle’s talking about the kind of love that keeps people together,” Hunk offered helpfully. “You’ve got that initial infatuation that draws someone in, but a relationship doesn’t work on that alone. Right?”

 

Romelle nodded, smiling. “Precisely.”

 

Hunk glanced sideways at Keith, who ignored him. This wasn’t exactly the turn he’d expected this conversation to take, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He wasn’t sure how to feel about a lot of things lately, it seemed. Adam, too, didn’t look too keen on the topic. Romelle made it sound so simple, for all that she claimed it sometimes wasn’t.

 

Romelle flew ahead again, dipping down to get her bearings on where they were. Hunk accompanied her in the interest that none of them should be alone, even for a few moments, leaving Keith and Adam flying alone in a not-so-companionable silence.

 

“So,” Adam started. “You and the sun, huh? What was his name again?”

 

“Lance,” Keith answered, averting his eyes. “And we’re not together.”

 

Adam snorted. “Sure you’re not. You guys are worse than when me and Takashi first got together. Kind of ironic though.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Of all the planets to fall for the sun, it’s the one that’s farthest from it. Or was, anyways.”

 

When Keith only stared, Adam continued, “Do you not know which planet you are?”

 

“No--I mean, I could probably figure it out if I took the time, but, well, I just haven’t had the time,” Keith stammered.

 

“You’re Pluto,” Adam said simply. “Although, it’s strange, if you think about it. Just before the fall, Pluto was classified as a dwarf planet, but people still look for it as though it is. None of the other dwarf planets have been given such consideration--I wonder why that is.”

 

Keith opened his mouth, though he had no idea what he wanted to say, but stopped short as they zipped by a wisp of a cloud. A knowing look passed between them, and they canted their brooms downwards to find Hunk and Romelle. Not a moment later, Keith felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end in a terrifyingly familiar way.

 

“Move!” Keith screamed just as Hunk and Romelle came into sight.

 

No sooner had they scattered than a crack of lightning, white hot and deadly, whipped through the air right where they had been. Distantly Keith noted that it wasn’t that much different from her usual lightning. What then, he wondered, was the point of having the power of the sun?

 

He wheeled around to face Terrell as she flew up to them. Adam sidled up beside him, with Hunk and Romelle not far behind. Dimly lit by a lantern full of stars, Terrell’s expression was displeased to say the least.

 

“Adam,” she greeted coldly. “We had a deal.”

 

“We did. We still do,” Adam insisted.

 

“Do we?”

 

“I haven’t done anything to breach our agreement.”

 

Terrell’s frown deepened. “Really? Looks like you decided to play the good guy at the first opportunity you saw.”

 

Adam said nothing at first, his lips pressed tightly together. It was just as he had said, Terrell wasn’t believing him. Fighting her, however, was not something any of them wanted to do. Keith had no idea what Adam was capable of, but Keith’s own powers were passive. Good at evading and hiding, but lacking in any offensive capability. If he had something more effective, he had no idea what it was, or how to use it.

 

Still, dark as it was, there was nowhere to hide in open skies. Clouds were closing in with the conjunction of Adam and Terrell, but enough lightning would flush them out if they tried to hide within them.

 

“They’re not trying to do anything,” Adam tried to convince her. “Even if they wanted, they wouldn’t be able to.”

 

“You know me better than that, Adam,” Terrell snarled back.

 

“They told me you have the power of the sun now--even with all of us together, are you really that afraid we might be able to interfere with whatever it is you’re doing?!” he attempted.

 

That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say.

 

Terrell didn’t even have to raise her hands. Arcs of lightning sparked from all over her body. The clouds around them swirled threateningly, looming large. Their group leaned back on their brooms, trying to put some space between them and her, all while knowing that fleeing was futile. Keith chanced a glance at the ground below. Nothing but darkness; it was too far for anything to be distinct. Too far to fall from, regardless of the supposed invulnerability of planets to falling. Keith gripped the handle of his broom, bracing himself for the worst.

 

The worst never came.

 

Terrell took a deep breath, and the lightning receded. Keith exchanged a look with the others.

 

“You’re right,” she said, stunning all of them. “You’ve done nothing wrong, and even if you wanted to do anything, you wouldn’t be able to.”

 

She spoke softly, almost talking to herself, or so it seemed to Keith. She nodded slightly, as though the logic was only just starting to make sense to her. Her eyes met Keith’s suddenly, and she scowled.

 

“You, on the other hand,” she started, sparks flying once more. “You’ve been in my way at every turn. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have had my way a lot sooner.”

 

Keith glared right back at her. “I thought you said I was nothing compared to you.”

 

Terrell’s expression twisted into something like fury, and this time she didn’t hesitate to raise her fist and hurl it through the air. Keith rolled out of the way, hoping to the stars above and below that the others did the same. It occurred to him once again that Terrell’s power wasn’t all that different from before. What sort of edge did the power of the sun give her?

 

Not that Keith was ungrateful for the apparent lack of a power boost as he dipped and twirled around the dangerous tendrils of electricity. Fighting Terrell was difficult enough as it was.

 

Adam called out to the others, “I can manipulate the clouds to give us some cover, maybe even make it rain icy to make it more difficult for her to maneuver, but it won’t be enough!”

 

“She’s only concerned about me, maybe if you guys--!” Keith started to suggest, only to be firmly cut off by Hunk.

 

“No way, man! We’re not leaving you behind, no matter how much of a good idea you think it is!”

 

“I’m not trying to be all noble again, I just don’t have any better ideas!” Keith shouted.

 

Hunk drew level with Keith as they dodged Terrell’s wild attacks.

 

“How do I use my powers?!” Hunk demanded.

 

“What?”

 

“You found me first because Saturn is your best bet against her, right? So tell me how to use my powers and maybe we can get out of this!”

 

“Stay still!” Terrell shrieked.

 

“It’s hard to explain, even if we weren’t actively under attack right now!” Keith said to Hunk.

 

“Your power will usually revolve around some sort of idea!” Adam interjected suddenly. “My powers are centered on emotions, particularly passionate, deep feeling! Once you find your center, you can find what you can do!”

 

“That’s great and all, but that doesn’t really help us now!” Hunk replied.

 

A panicked cry pierced the air before Adam could explain further, and Keith’s stomach dropped. Below them, Romelle had not been quick enough in dodging a streak of lightning. It caught the tail end of her broom and sent her into a rapid downwards spiral. Keith made to go after her, the image too frighteningly familiar, but a barrage of lightning blocked his way. He shouted incoherently, his own power rising up unbidden within him. He made to charge at Terrell directly, to get her to stop shooting lightning everywhere, only to find that Hunk was way ahead of him.

 

Their collision happened in such a way that was at once far too fast, but also somehow in slow motion. Terrell didn’t notice Hunk coming until it was too late. She brought up a hand to defend herself, her palm alight with electricity. Hunk paid the lightning no heed. He barrelled forward, drawing back his own fist, which, as far as Keith could see did not contain any sort of special power whatsoever.

 

Keith tried to call out to Hunk, to warn him off such a reckless action. He was too slow. Or was Hunk too fast? He couldn’t tell. Especially not as Hunk’s fist plowed right through the electricity and connected solidly with Terrell’s hand.

 

First there was a blinding white light.

 

Second, too many colors at once, more colors than Keith had ever seen in one place in such vivid intensity.

 

Then, the sensation of his body being flung backwards, acutely reminding him that he was still dangerously high up in the sky.

 

Finally, there was darkness.

 

(Before the fall, it was known that the world humans knew was balanced on the precarious edge of a galaxy, within a quaint solar system that orbited a not-so-remarkable star.)

 

Keith shook his head, trying to reorient himself. He had been quiet sure he had been falling, but now it seemed he wasn’t. Had he already hit the ground then? He tried to move some part of his body, any part--surely there would be overwhelming pain if he had hit the ground, right? No part of his body responded. He blinked--or at least, he thought he blinked. He tried to look around, to see where he was, what sort of condition he was in, but there was only darkness.

 

(By all accounts, the solar system was nothing special--not to an outside eye, anyways.)

 

Keith strained his eyes, looking for something, anything--he found it in the form of a bright point of light. Others followed, steady and brilliantly colored, but none shined as brightly as the one Keith had first spotted. As before, and as he always would, Keith imagined he could feel it’s warmth, even from this distance. The darkness, at once so pressing and yet so empty, chilled Keith down to the bone. Even the idea of warmth helped to soothe Keith’s shivering.

 

(Planets and planetoid objects revolved reliably around an average star. There were many stars like it. It could’ve been suggested that there was something special in the fact that it was a solitary star, where many were part of a binary system, but this too was not uncommon. By all accounts, the star and it’s planets were nothing special.)

 

(Nothing special at all.)

 

Keith reached for the bright light. It was important to him, he remembered. How or why didn’t matter, all that mattered was that he wanted nothing more than to be close to it, even if it burned him alive. Something deep within him, something that felt older and more familiar than a memory, urged him to stay put. It would not do to stray from the path he’d been assigned, it told him. Keith hesitated. Right, he was a planet. He couldn’t stray from his orbit, even in following the irresistible pull of gravity. Inertia, he distantly remembered from school. Inertia pushed him forward, while gravity pulled him back.

 

(The planets and planetoid objects, unexceptional and average in their existence, plodded along as they were bid by the known laws of the universe. It could be predicted, if there were anyone who thought it worth their time. Such was their nature, to be predictable, reliable.) 

 

(They were completely ordinary in comparison to celestial objects more distant and more grand.)

 

(But those were there, and this was here.)

 

(Keith was here.)

 

(Where were the others?)

 

Keith gasped sharply and pulled up on his broom just as he was about to crash into a modest suburban household. His feet scraped the roof and he hoped that this was one of the abandoned suburban neighborhoods as he rocketed back upwards, eyes searching the skies for his friends. Adam was flying towards him, Romelle safely clinging to him on the back of his broom. Neither Hunk nor Terrell were anywhere to be found.

 

“What happened?! Where’s Hunk?!” Keith shouted.

 

“I don’t know!” Adam replied. “My guess is that he managed to use his powers and they interacted with Terrell’s, causing… whatever that was.”

 

“We have to find Hunk,” Keith insisted, heart in his throat.

 

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Romelle cried out happily, pointing to a dark and distant horizon where they could just barely make out Hunk’s form flying towards them. They flew to meet him halfway, and it was just as well that they did: Hunk was dazed from the blast, and Keith worried he might fall off his broom. He urged Romelle to continue leading them along; the sooner they got to safety, the better.

 

There was no sign of Terrell as they zipped away. The clouds had completely cleared.

 

Even so, Keith couldn’t help but glance back over his shoulder every once in a while as they flew along. He stayed close to Hunk, who still hadn’t shaken off whatever it was he’d done. Or rather, what he and Terrell had done. He tried to mumble an explanation to the others, but it took all the energy he had left to just stay on his broom. All he’d managed was that it felt like his powers were essentially the opposite of Terrell’s, in a way. Keith offered to let him ride on the back of his own broom, but Hunk had politely declined.

 

“I can manage, for a bit longer,” Hunk assured him.

 

They flew and flew for what felt like hours. Once, Keith suggested they double back for a bit, to make sure that they hadn’t been followed, but Adam pointed out that that could also put them at risk of being spotted. Reluctantly, Keith let it go. They flew and flew through the darkness. If it wasn’t for the few stars shining steadily in the sky, Keith would hardly be able to tell up from down. As it was, he had absolutely no idea where they were. Romelle, however, seemed to know exactly where she was going. Even if she had gotten lost, however, Keith still had his star. From time to time, he reached into his pocket to make sure it was still there, just in case.

 

After what felt like hours, Romelle had them descend. There were no lights that Keith could see. In the distance, he could barely make out the silhouette of a mountain range. The air here, farther from the shore, seemed colder. There was a bite to it that seemed harsher. Keith shivered underneath his jacket and thought longingly of the cozy warmth of his apartment.

 

He wondered if Lance had managed to stay warm enough.

 

As they got closer to the ground, Keith finally spotted a lantern (an actual oil lantern, instead of a lantern filled with stars), hung right outside the door of a very cozy looking house. As far as Keith could tell, it stood alone in the shadowed valley. He could see no lights through the windows. When they landed, however, something shuffled in the biggest window at the front, letting light spill out. Allura was the first one to run out, arms open wide and her hair trailing like a comet behind her. Romelle ran to meet her, her golden hair a perfect match to Allura’s silver.

 

Keith watched as they collided, twirling in tandem and heaving immense sighs of relief. Beside him, Hunk, supported by Adam, waited patiently. Keith averted his eyes as Romelle and Allura held each other close, Romelle no doubt explaining what had taken them so long. Her hands were fondly tangled in Allura’s silver locks, and Keith looked away, his cheeks burning. It felt like he was intruding, to look openly at such gentle intimacy.

 

From the open door, Shiro stepped outside, followed shortly by Veronica, Pidge, and finally, Lance. Keith didn’t allow his eyes to linger, flushed as he already felt. Romelle’s words about love being a choice echoed in his head insistently. Keith debated whether he should listen to them or not. There was no denying that there was some semblance of feeling, something that curled warm and soft behind his ribcage that pushed, rather than pulled. Pushed him to bring Lance close, tell him everything that happened since they last saw each other, make sure that he was staying warm.

 

But doubt was an ever-present and insistent undercurrent to Keith’s thoughts. What if, when all was said and done, he stopped feeling the way he did? He couldn’t bring himself to break Lance’s heart a second time.

 

Keith let himself be ushered inside with the others, where a man with the most impressive moustache Keith had ever seen greeted them enthusiastically in spite of their sudden intrusion. He closed the door behind them, locking it tight. He herded them into the living room, which looked almost too small for all the people trying to cram into it now. Once everyone had flopped down and claimed a seat, however, it seemed cozy, welcoming, even with everyone pressed shoulder to shoulder. Keith tried to not think too much about how warm Lance felt against his side, and he certainly didn’t let himself believe that Lance was leaning into him.

 

“Everyone,” Allura said once they were all comfortably settled. “This is my uncle, Coran. We should be safe here for some time, while we figure out what to do next.”

 

“Pleasure to meet you all,” the chipper man greeted.

 

Everyone briefly introduced themselves, and just when Keith thought that Coran would ask what was going on, he asked if anyone wanted something warm to drink. Several of them answered that, yes, that sounded very nice. Keith himself declined. More than anything, he wanted to sleep. Fatigue weighed heavy on him, and now, warm and comfortable, his eyelids were drooping against his will. He nearly did fall asleep, while a few of the others spoke in hushed tones, a gentle murmur that made Keith feel at ease. He jerked to a sudden wakefulness when Coran loudly returned with drinks for those who wanted some.

 

Lance looked at him, a questioning expression on his face. “Hey man, are you alright?”

 

“Yeah, just tired,” Keith mumbled, nodding a little. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to will away his exhaustion. How many hours had it been since that small nap he’d shared with Lance?

 

“So, not that I don’t love seeing my favorite niece and all her friends,” Coran began. “But I must admit I find myself rather curious as to the reason for this sudden visit.”

 

Everyone shuffled awkwardly, some gripping steaming mugs tightly. More explanations. More questions asked that they wouldn’t know the answers to. Coran looked at them all expectantly, looking from face to face for an answer.

 

It was Veronica that spoke first, impatient with the silence. “We’re all planets, apparently.”

 

All eyes snapped to her. It was the truth, of course, but to hear it so abruptly put was jarring, to say the least. Keith looked back at Coran, expecting bewilderment, even denial. What he did not expect was a melancholy expression, where just moments before Coran had been delighted and jovial. Even his moustache seemed to droop a little.

 

“You knew,” Keith said.

 

Coran closed his eyes and sighed deeply. On the couch, Allura leaned forward, suddenly concerned.

 

“Coran?” she questioned.

 

“I knew,” Coran confirmed with a solemn nod.

 

Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. The air in the room, which had only just been so inviting, was now taut with expectation. Coran looked thoughtful, deciding his next words carefully.

 

“I know because I was there where the moon fell to the earth,” Coran began. He looked to Allura. “When you fell to the earth.”

 

He took a seat for himself and laced his hands together. His brow was creased with so many lines, Keith wondered if Coran had ever intended for Allura to know.

 

“Before the fall, your parents and I were enthusiastic, if amateur, astronomers of sorts. And there was a grand happening that was to occur, the likes of which no one in written history had ever observed, because it’s an event that only happens once every ten thousand years--a grand syzygy,” Coran explained.

 

“Uh, gesundheit?” Lance offered.

 

Keith nudged him sharply with his elbow, but Coran chuckled good-naturedly. “A syzygy is the alignment of three or more celestial objects. In the case of the grand syzygy, all the significant members of the solar system were to be in alignment. All the planets, including Pluto, which at the time had only very recently been declared to be a dwarf planet, and the moon, and of course the sun, would form a perfect line with each other. Allura’s parents and I were eagerly looking forward to it, you see. We’d seen solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, and all manner of other extraordinary astronomical events, but this was something that we would quite literally never see again.”

 

“There was no indication beforehand that anything unusual would happen,” Coran continued after a brief moment of deliberation, twirling his moustache thoughtfully. “We watched the planets eagerly for weeks before hand, tracking their movement until the day came that they would all be in alignment. When that day finally arrived, it was like watching a solar eclipse. Totality was only supposed to last for a few minutes, but if I remember correctly, the syzygy itself was only supposed to last for a minute, if that.”

 

Coran’s eyes misted over, looking nostalgic for a moment. “Had I known that would be the last time I would see the sun in the sky…” He shook his head before he could get too lost in the memory. “Anyways, it happened as soon as the eclipse reached totality. The fall, that is. At first, we thought it was a meteor shower, and thought ourselves exceedingly lucky. Then, a bright flash just about blinded us, and the next thing we knew, it looked as though the sky was falling. Imagine that!”

 

“When the bright light subsided, the eclipse was gone--just, gone. We saw the moon, as though it was just sliding off the sky, turn into nothing but light, which then barrelled straight for us! It was Alfor, Allura’s father, who realized that it was far too small to be any ordinary meteor. While her mother and I tried to find cover, Alfor ran straight for it. We thought he’d gone mad! But then he raised his hands and caught it, and what should he bring back over to us but a little baby girl, with hair as silver as the moon?”

 

He paused, letting the information sink in.

 

“Why did you never tell me?” Allura asked in a tremulous voice.

 

Coran frowned, the lines in his face belying his age. “We wanted to. We were going to, initially, but then…”

 

“Then?” Allura pressed when Coran trailed off.

 

“Well, we came to love you of course.”

 

Coran paused again, eyes glimmering with some bittersweet thought or other. “You grew up just as any other child would. We watched you closely, knowing what you are, but we quickly came to see you as you. A lively, determined young girl at the whim of her emotions, which were turbulent to say the least--and, oh, did we love you. We loved you so much that we became afraid. Afraid that one day you would have to return to the sky and leave behind the human life you were establishing for yourself. We, of course, had no idea how that would even work, or if it was even possible at all. All that mattered to us was that you were happy just as you were. So we kept it from you. And for that, I am sorry. I’m sure your parents would be too, if they were still here.”

 

Allura leapt up from her seat and hurried over to Coran to embrace him tightly.

 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she insisted, sounding close to tears again.

 

The room was silent again as they hugged, and again Keith felt as though he was intruding. Beside him, Lance looked pensieve.

 

“Did you know about me?” Lance asked suddenly.

 

Allura pulled away, looking back and forth between Coran and Lance.

 

“We suspected that you might be the sun,” Coran confirmed. “Alfor in particular insisted that there were many signs that pointed to it, but even without them you always had a certain look in your eye that suggested there was something within you older than any of us could comprehend.”

 

Lance hummed, and pressed his lips together tightly.

 

“Lance?” Allura inquired.

 

“You should’ve said something,” Lance stated quietly. “I get not saying anything about Allura, but I’m--I’m the sun. The earth needs the sun, it’s dying and it’s going to bring everyone with it and putting the sun--me--back in the sky would stop all that.”

 

“Lance, no--” Allura started.

 

“We didn’t want to do that to your family,” Coran calmly replied. “We felt we had no right.”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Lance said fiercely as he stood. Keith’s side felt unusually cold. “This is the sun we’re talking about, you should’ve said something.”

 

“It’s also you we’re talking about!” Veronica interjected, every bit as agitated as Lance.

 

“Veronica, don’t--”

 

“Don’t what, Lance? Don’t care about you, my brother, who I’ve known my entire life? Someone I’ve looked after for years? I’m not about to stop caring now just because you think you need to throw yourself away for the sake of the world!” she shouted.

 

Lance huffed with frustration. “You don’t get it! This is bigger than me, or you, or any of us! Yes, I am prepared to give myself up for the sake of the world, because it’s the entire earth we’re talking about! Do you know how many people are on this planet right now? Does it not matter to you that they have lives too, that they could be living happily too were it not for the fact that their home was literally freezing over and breaking down right under their feet?!”

 

“This isn’t some fairy tale where everyone gets a happy ending just because we want it,” Lance continued in a softer voice, one that wavered slightly as he pressed on. “This is real life. I’m not trying to be all self-sacrificing just for the sake of it. I’m trying to do what’s right.”

 

Silence followed Lance’s passionate declaration. Even Veronica was too stunned to say anything. The fact of the matter was, Lance was right. It would be far too selfish to keep the sun from the world, all so that they could keep a single person by their side as the world crumbled to ice and dust around them.

 

Pidge fidgeted in her seat. “What if there was another way?”

 

“If there’s another way, trust me, I would love to hear it,” Lance admitted earnestly. He glanced at Coran. “You wouldn’t happen to know of way to put the sun in the sky while I stay here, would you?”

 

Coran solemnly shook his head. “I wish I did. But perhaps, if we looked…”

 

“For how long?” Lance interrupted. “For how long would we look? How long would we delay the inevitable?”

 

“Lance, I get it, we have to save the world, but you’re our friend. To let you go just like that, when we don’t even know if there’s an alternative… It feels like giving up,” Hunk said.

 

“What makes you so sure you’re still the sun?” Keith suddenly asked, standing to face Lance.

 

They were almost the same height, Keith noted vaguely. He wondered who was taller, of the two of them. He wished they had time for such trivial things.

 

“I just know,” Lance answered, not looking Keith in the eye. “And anyways, Terrell was very specific in her wording, she wanted the power of the sun, not to be the sun herself, probably for this very reason.”

 

“Then why did you bother coming with me?” Keith demanded, shifting himself so that he was directly in Lance’s line of sight. “You could’ve stayed at the Bureau, let them put you in the sky, but you didn’t.”

 

“Because Terrell is running around getting ready to do who knows what with all that power! I’m not going to leave the earth with that kind of mess!” Lance insisted shrilly.

 

“So you have a plan for how to stop her?”

 

“Of course not, I have no idea what--”

 

“Then why are you here?!”

 

“Because I’m scared!” Lance shrieked. “I’m scared, of course I’m scared! I don’t know what’s going to happen when they put me back in the sky! Will it be like dying?! Will I still be conscious?! Will I forget everything I’ve done and everyone I’ve met?! There’s no way for me to know and that terrifies me, but I can’t let that keep me from doing the right thing! Maybe I am right now, for just a little bit longer, but--but--”

 

He didn’t once look Keith in the eye, for all that Keith wished he would. Lance took a deep breath, trying to compose himself once more.

 

“While we look for a way to reign in Terrell, we can look for an alternative solution. But as soon as Terrell is no longer a threat…” Lance trailed off, letting the implication hang in the air and sway morbidly in front of them all.

 

It was Shiro who spoke first. “Alright.”

 

Nearly everyone whipped towards Shiro with a cry of protest. His expression was that of grim determination. He didn’t flinch from everyone’s loud protests. Even Lance looked surprised at Shiro’s easy agreement.

 

When everyone quieted, Shiro spoke again, “All that means is that we have to find a different way. We  _ will  _ find a different way. In the meantime, we’ve all had a long day, some of us longer than others. We should get some rest, and then decide where to go from here.”

 

Reluctant as they were, everyone seemed to agree. Coran’s home had quite a few spare rooms, but not enough for everyone to have their own. Hunk and Pidge were agreeable to sharing, and Veronica, who had become quickly partial to them, decided to join them. As they padded up the stairs, they were already speaking in hushed tones about something Keith couldn’t make out. Shiro and Adam retreated to a corner of the living room, where they both looked stormy, but the weather outside remained clear. Whatever they were talking about, they were determined to keep it quiet this time. Romelle and Allura stayed with Coran for a few moments longer, lingering in the kitchen and holding their toasty mugs close. Lance joined them for a spell, only hovering on the fringes of their conversation and saying nothing. Romelle wrapped an arm around him and hugged him tight. He left after only a moment, practically dragging himself up the stairs.

 

Keith, meanwhile, was left alone. Just as well, he thought. There were still some loose ends for him to tie up after all. He trudged upstairs, fatigue dragging back his every step. The door of the room where Hunk, Pidge, and Veronica were staying was slightly ajar. They were still talking, their chatter floating out into the hallway. Keith caught snippets of their conversation as he approached the door.

 

“--don’t think it’s any coincidence that you and I were dragged into this too,” he heard Veronica say.

 

“I agree, but you said you’re Lance’s older sister, right? If we’re all planets, wouldn’t we all be the same age?” Pidge questioned.

 

Veronica hummed. “It would.”

 

“Maybe your family was the same as Allura’s, and told you guys you were different ages to keep you safer?” Hunk suggested.

 

“Maybe.”

 

Keith tapped gently on the door.

 

“Hey, Pidge, can we talk?”

 

She agreed, and they stood in the dark hallway together, with both of their arms crossed. A moment of silence passed between them. Keith knew what he had to say, and why it needed to be said, but actually saying it was another matter entirely.

 

“I’m sorry,” Pidge suddenly said.

 

Keith blinked. “What are you talking about? I’m the one that’s sorry--”

 

“I’m sure you know that the Bureau let most of the solar task force go,” Pidge interrupted. “It wasn’t because they found out that I’d been snooping, and I would never seriously believe that you would rat me out.”

 

“You… lied?”

 

She nodded. “I--I was just angry, because you were already pushing everyone away and I knew you’d probably do the same to me and I just wanted to help, and I thought that if I made you angry enough you’d let something slip and then you’d have to let me help, and I just--I don’t know--”

 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Keith insisted. “I’m sorry too--if I hadn’t gotten it in my head that going at it alone was the best way, you might never have felt the need to do that. In a way, I’m kind of glad that you were willing to try anything at all.”

 

“Doesn’t make some of the things I said right,” Pidge muttered. “I don’t think I can ever remember a time where I ever felt so angry and unable to do anything about it.”

 

“I honestly thought you were going to fight me,” Keith admitted with a hollow laugh.

 

Pidge laughed too as she let her arms fall to her sides. “Honestly, I probably would’ve if you hadn’t still been injured. I don’t know what came over me.”

 

“You’ve always been a firecracker,” Keith teased gently, reaching over to lightly muss her mess of mousy brown hair.

 

She laughed in earnest and batted his hand away, saying, “You’re as bad as my brother!”

 

With the air sufficiently cleared between them, they bid each other good night. That left Keith with one last person to talk to--or at least, one last person to apologize to. Luckily for him, Allura came up the stairs just as Pidge left.

 

“Allura, hey, I was just--”

 

She held up a hand to stop him. “You don’t need to apologize to me.”

 

“I feel like I do.”

 

“No, you don’t,” she insisted. “I would’ve done the same thing, had I been in your place. Perhaps not quite in the same way, but… You did what you thought would be best to keep Lance safe. You knew that if he knew, he would do… well, what he tried to do. What he’s still trying to do. I would do anything to keep that from happening, selfish as it sounds, but…”

 

Romelle, who had come up the stairs in time to hear Allura. She placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think it’s selfish to want to keep someone you care about alive.”

 

“Even at the cost of the entire world?” Allura asked.

 

“I don’t know,” Romelle admitted. “But you know me, I’m optimistic. I think we should always act on love over logic.”

 

“More than optimistic, you’re a romantic, a hopeless one at that,” Allura teased.

 

“Well, this is a hopeless situation after all. What else is there to do?” Romelle answered with a smile.

 

Keith, meanwhile, was in desperate need of some sleep. “Are we good then?”

 

“Oh! Yes, of course,” Allura said sheepishly. “Although, there is one thing…”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Be honest: how do you really feel about Lance?” she asked.

 

Keith felt his breath catch in his throat. “I--it’s hard to tell.”

 

“How do you mean?” Romelle piped.

 

“He’s the sun,” Keith huffed, scowling. “And apparently I’m Pluto. Whatever pull I have to him--”

 

“Wait, are you telling me you think that gravity is still relevant in our case?” Romelle interrupted.

 

“Why wouldn’t it be? Think about it, nearly everyone that’s a planet--or a moon--is close to Lance in some way. I guarantee you that if Terrell hadn’t been found out the way she had, she’d still be working at the Bureau. Even the biggest planet was still a lot smaller than the sun. You think it’s just a coincidence that we all ended up close to Lance in some way?”

 

Allura and Romelle exchanged glances with one another.

 

“Perhaps,” Allura began slowly. “Gravity put you in Lance’s path, and perhaps it kept you there, but whatever you did once there… you do realize that was your choice, right?”

 

Keith looked away from them, grateful for the darkness that (hopefully) hid his burning cheeks. Romelle sighed dramatically, slinging an arm around Allura’s shoulders.

 

“And I thought we were bad before we got together,” she lamented.

 

“We won’t bother you about it again, Keith, but… maybe consider that things aren’t as complicated as you’re making them out to be?”

 

Keith’s eyes snapped back up to Allura. “Who told you that?”

 

“No one, why?”

 

He shook his head. “It’s nothing, I’m just… tired. Exhausted actually.”

 

“Last door on the right,” Allura directed him.

 

Keith thanked her and trudged down the hall. It was strange, he thought, that this level of exhaustion wasn’t enough to quiet his racing thoughts. He knew he would fall into the bed as soon as he saw it though--he made a mental note to at least take his shoes off before doing so, but when he opened the door, he froze. Someone was already on the bed.

 

In the back of his head, Keith had known that he would be sharing a room with someone, and that that someone would likely be Lance, given the nature of his friends and the fact that it seemed only natural to allow Romelle and Allura some privacy with one another. That wasn’t what gave him pause. What caused him to stop in his tracks right in the doorway was that Lance was still wide awake, sitting at the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.

 

He looked up when Keith opened the door. Even in the low light, Keith could see that his normally bright eyes seemed dull.

 

“Oh, hey, Keith. I suppose you want to sleep, you’re probably beat. I’ll just--”

 

“Stay.”

 

Lance blinked. “What?”

 

Keith stepped into the room all the way and closed the door behind him. “Stay. Please.”

 

“I don’t want to keep you up.”

 

“Then you won’t.”

 

Lance considered Keith’s words for a moment. “What if I want you to stay awake a bit longer?”

 

“Then I will.”

 

Lance shook his head. “Sorry, no, you need sleep, we both do. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

 

He stood and walked towards Keith, and Keith thought that he intended to leave. Much as he didn’t want to, Keith stepped away from the door. If Lance wanted to be alone, then so be it, but, given that he was already here, Keith wanted nothing more than for him to stay.

 

Instead of reaching for the door, however, Lance reached for Keith, helping him out of his jacket.

 

“Quit moving, I’m just--” Lance muttered under his breath. “I know you get warm easily--you were going to fall right into bed without even taking your shoes off, weren’t you?”

 

“I was,” Keith insisted as Lance slid his jacket off of him.

 

Lance scoffed. “Sure you were.”

 

A few moments later saw them tucked into bed, facing each other and still bantering back and forth about whether Keith would’ve taken his shoes off if Lance hadn’t reminded him to do so. There was only a few inches of space between them; their hands were almost touching. Eventually, they both fell silent, but neither of them closed their eyes. Now that he was lying down, Keith wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and let sleep take him. It pressed behind his eyes and made his head ache slightly. It would take no effort at all to fall asleep at this point--but he stayed awake.

 

“Aren’t you tired?” Lance whispered.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then go to sleep.”

 

“What about you?”

 

Lance sighed, averting his eyes from Keith’s.

 

“What’s wrong?” Keith pressed.

 

“I told you earlier, didn’t I?” Lance answered, shutting his eyes tightly. “I’m scared.”

 

Keith moved his hand to cover Lance’s. His thumb moved back and forth across Lance’s knuckles in what he hoped was a soothing motion.

 

“We’re going to find another way,” Keith assured him.

 

“How can you be so sure? There’s so many things we still don’t know,” Lance said, his voice almost inaudible.

 

“Because we care about you, Lance,” Keith replied. “We’ll do whatever it takes to keep you here with us.”

 

Lance smiled a small and woeful smile, turning his hand to lace his fingers with Keith’s. “And who do you mean when you say ‘we’?”

 

“All of us,” Keith said. Then, in a smaller voice, “Me.”

 

Lance hummed, his eyes half closed. They were quiet for so long that Keith started to drift off, his eyelids fluttering against his will. He hadn’t realized that they had been closed for some time until a gentle touch across his cheek startled him into wakefulness again. Lance’s hand jumped back, his eyes wide and looking right at Keith.

 

“Sorry,” he apologized in a soft voice. “Thought you were asleep.”

 

“‘S fine,” Keith mumbled.

 

Lance’s hand returned to trace the line of Keith’s jaw, in a way that could only be described as reverent. His fingers lightly danced across the sensitive skin under his ear, and then tangled themselves in his hair as they always did. Keith let himself relax under Lance’s ministrations, his eyelids growing heavy once more. Lance seemed more than content to lightly pet at Keith until he fell asleep. Keith, for his part, would’ve been more than content to let him, if he wasn’t so worried about Lance not sleeping.

 

“Keith?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“I love you.”

 

Keith’s eyes snapped open again, certain that his face was so red it was a beacon in the darkness. Lance was still looking at him, eyes still dampened with melancholy, but now with a touch of warmth to them. Keith swallowed hard. What was he even supposed to say to that?!

 

“You don’t have to say anything, I just wanted to say it. Sorry--”

 

“Don’t be,” Keith interrupted, shuffling close to wrap his arms around Lance. “Maybe I’m confused about how I feel right now, maybe even a little scared, but I do know that I care about you a lot, and I want to be in your life, even if only for a little while. I’m happy to hear you say you love me, it just--I just--”

 

“Don’t know if you can say it back yet?”

 

“Mhm.”

 

Lance hugged Keith tightly, burying his face in the crook of Keith’s neck. “That’s okay. It’s enough to have you here, now. Even if things don’t work out--”

 

“Don’t say that.”

 

“Even if things don’t work out,” Lance repeated forcefully, his hands grabbing fistfuls of Keith’s shirt. “At least I’ll have this.”

 

When Keith’s eyes fluttered shut for a third time, he didn’t resist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned... chapter 12 to follow soon.  
> As always, if you feel like yelling, or have questions, feel free to visit me on tumblr @stories-in-the-stars :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. Welcome to the end.
> 
> I did it. I wrote two chapters in the space of the week. Many late nights were had. I actually stayed up until 8am finishing up this chapter.

It started, as these things often do, with a dream.

 

Not any dream of Keith’s, nor any of the planets or moons or any star, though they saw it all the same. It was not nearly as old as any of them either, but it was just as powerful, if not more. No one could say who dreamed it first. After all, whoever dreamed it was so small compared to everything that surrounded the planets, smaller even than the planets themselves. As it was, before the dream was dreamed, the planets were unaware of anything, so even if they had wanted to pay particular attention to the curious beings that populated a pale blue dot in their system, they couldn’t. For this was the dream that breathed life into them.

 

Yes, it was the stories of humans that gave sentience to the planets. The belief of humans was a powerful thing, and from the moment they could think to cast their eyes skywards, they told stories of the things they saw in the sky. The stories spread far and wide, even into the skies themselves.

 

First were the stories of the sun and moon, those familiar faces in their beloved dance across the sky. The sun, which warmed the earth and gave life to everything that humans knew, became synonymous with good health and vitality. It was gentle, but powerful, and above all demanded to be seen. Being the brightest object in the sky naturally accorded a certain level of importance. Such importance to humans was perhaps matched only by the moon, who seemed the opposite of the sun in every way. In fact, the moon was only sometimes opposite the sun, when it was shrouded in complete darkness, mysterious and retiring. Other times it shined brightly in the night, vivid and beautiful. Most importantly, the moon controlled the tides that so many lives had come to depend on. Indeed, the sun and the moon were a natural match.

 

When the sun and the moon opened their eyes upon the humans, and on each other, they found love, and what a curious and powerful thing that was to them. Unlike the humans they so intently watched, however, there was nothing that could be done about their love. The sun could not grant it’s own wish, and the wish of the moon alone was not enough to bring them together. As such, their love stretched across the emptiness for centuries, while the humans dreamed of ever more stories.

 

(Quiet laughter echoed among the stars, and Keith saw Lance and Allura, looking younger than they did now, swinging their joined hands in a long, wild arc. In their eyes glimmered a love that belied their years. No one else could be seen.)

 

Next came Mercury, closest to the sun. Mercury was the fastest traveller among the stars, a wonder to watch. When the stories humans dreamed breathed life into Mercury, the eyes that opened on the world were sharp and perceptive. Mercury became eager to point out everything to the sun it hovered so close to, for while the sun saw things in a bright light, Mercury was quick to see the flipside.

 

“Why would you want to be among humans?” Mercury would insist from one side.

 

“It would be fun,” said the sun by the time Mercury had reached the other side.

 

Mercury swooped around. “Fun? Humans will hurt you. And who’s to say you wouldn’t hurt them back?”

 

“Aren’t you at least curious?” the sun questioned as Mercury moved yet again to another side. “What if, ultimately, humans are good? After all, it’s because of them that we’re like this now. Are you saying you don’t like this?”

 

In the end, Mercury agreed to wish to go, if only because it was determined to watch over this naive star it had been stuck with. Someone would certainly take advantage of the sun if it ever got it’s wish, and Mercury was intent that it should not happen, not while they were nearby.

 

(“Lance, you’ve been mooning over this guy for how long now? All he does is push you away, he’s no good for you,” Veronica could be heard insisting.

 

She and Lance were separated by a counter, having a meal together it seemed. Lance had been grinning like a lovestruck fool until then, when Veronica said that whoever he was stuck on wasn’t good for him.

 

“You haven’t met him,” Lance argued. “He cares a lot more than he lets on. About everything, I’d say.”

 

“Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, but it sounds like he chooses to act like he doesn’t care, or when he does, it’s way too much. How could you possibly like a guy like that?”

 

Lance took on a thoughtful expression at that, his eyes misting over with fondness. “I guess… I don’t know, he’s just inherently amazing. He’s good at everything he does, but he also works hard, sometimes too hard in my opinion, and he just inspires me to do better--”

 

Veronica held up a hand to stop him. “Alright, alright, I get it, but when he inevitably breaks your heart, don’t come crying to me.”)

 

(Keith felt his gut twist with guilt.)

 

(The dream continued in spite of his reluctance.)

 

After that came Venus, as lovely as the moon and twice as romantic, as far as humans were concerned. In the beginning, however, Venus did not look for romance. Venus looked for other kinds of love, the love that was overlooked by so many, even humans. Venus looked at those celestial beings that were already aware of themselves, who welcomed it warmly, and it saw the love of a family, the love between friends. Among humans Venus saw the potential for a grand, enlightened love that held them together as a species, that helped them to survive. It took no effort at all to convince Venus that they should go and join the humans.

 

And yet, even with Venus and Mercury wishing with all their might, their wish did not come true.

 

(From the darkness emerged yet another memory that wasn’t Keith’s. This time it was Lance and Romelle, chatting idly about love. Romelle insisted that she wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship of any sort, while Lance was eager to find such a love.

 

(Unbeknownst to him, that was what he’d come to earth for, after all, and even failing to find romance in the moon, it was still his greatest wish.)

 

Mars, headstrong and eager, was also easily persuaded to join the planets in their quest. To humans, Mars was regarded as a patron of war, violent, and in some depictions bloodthirsty. But humans in their hearts were not naturally inclined to war, not the ones who were wont to tell these stories that so livened the planets anyways. While Mars was strong, and ready to fight, that did not necessarily mean it wanted to. After all, the greatest stories were of reluctant warriors fighting only for what they believed in. In the meantime, Mars was energetic and prone to recklessness. It was more than ready to charge headfirst into the world of humans, and right whatever wrongs it may come across.

 

(Lance and Pidge were play-fighting, although it hardly looked like it. In fact, it looked more like Pidge was punching Lance’s arm harder than she realized, while Lance tried to retreat and bat her hands away. Both of them were giggling like maniacs, about what Keith couldn’t tell. All he knew was that when it was just the two of them, they looked like trouble waiting to happen.)

 

Jupiter, the largest planet of them all, was often a king in human stories, powerful but unpredictable as a storm. Here too was a planet willing to wish themself down to earth with the others, if only for the sake of curiosity.

 

“I wonder what it would be like,” Jupiter said. “To be a human.”

 

(Here was a memory that did not involve Lance. It was Terrell, a few years younger with a brighter, more optimistic face. She didn’t look like anyone that could possibly become a villain of any sort, much less a murderer. She had just taken flight, relishing the sensation of weightlessness with a deep sigh. As far as Keith could tell, this was from the time she worked at the Bureau as a searcher.

 

“I don’t want to see this,” he heard Terrell say, though the voice came not from the Terrell in the memory. “I don’t want to see this!”

 

Keith blinked, and a scream pierced his ears with such intensity that everything became a jumbled mess, the dream threatening to end. It was followed by a sharp crack of thunder, and then, silence. The younger Terrell emerged from the darkness again, her face tear streaked and horrified. Before her was a sight that made Keith recoil--it was a wonder he didn’t wake up then. Three bodies, charred and smoking, and completely still. Terrell curled in on herself, sobbing uncontrollably.

 

“I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to!” she kept repeating.)

 

(Keith suddenly found it very hard to reconcile the image of a careless murderer with the memory before him.)

 

(“I don’t want your sympathy,” he thought he heard Terrell say from the shadows.)

 

Saturn had been the hardest to convince, what with it’s stories of a steadfast and reliable nature. As far as Saturn was concerned, there was nothing wrong with remaining as they were, and that becoming human might be dangerous. Jupiter was of no help convincing Saturn, as their motivation was a simple whim. It was, as it always was, the sun who urged Saturn to reconsider, and join them.

 

“You don’t have to come with us,” the sun began.

 

“I don’t?”

 

“No, but imagine how lonely it would be for you once we all left.”

 

After some brief consideration, Saturn was much more agreeable to the plan.

 

(This memory was far more lighthearted than the previous one, with Lance trying to convince Hunk to skip work, just for one day, so they could go do something fun. Hunk was worried that they would be found out, and the last thing he wanted, he said, was to be fired just because Lance wanted to play hooky. Lance was insistent. So was Hunk. It wasn’t until that moment that Keith realized how different they were. How interesting, he thought, that there were so many different ways different things could be opposite.)

 

(Eventually, Lance got his way.)

 

(Keith found himself smiling fondly.)

 

With Saturn, the planets thus far thought that this time, for sure, their singular wish would be granted. Yet even with the mighty Jupiter and the steady Saturn on their side, the wish fizzled and died before it could be granted. They looked beyond Saturn, waiting eagerly, not yet realizing that the humans could not yet see beyond Saturn. Thankfully, what was a lifetime to humans was nothing to planets, who plodded along as they always did, awaiting the day that they could move as they pleased.

 

When humans found Uranus, they told grand tales of a lord of the skies, old and wise. These stories were more a feeling than anything specific, but Uranus was a calm and reassuring presence--most of the time. When Uranus agreed to join the others in their wish to become human, it was out of a sense of responsibility, rather than any inherent desire to become human itself. Still, after a little while, Uranus came to find enthusiasm for the idea.

 

(“Lance McClain, right? I’m Takashi Shirogane--you can just call me Shiro--I’ll be your supervisor from now on, so any problems you have, just let me know, okay?”

 

Shiro held out his hand, and Lance shook it, grinning all the while.

 

“I’ve heard about you, you kind of have a reputation within the Bureau, you know?” Lance mentioned.

 

Shiro nodded. “I’m aware. Now, I know you probably went over the process a thousand times in training, but let me run through the process of how searchers are assigned to areas and how stars are turned in for analysis.”

 

Lance groaned dramatically. Shiro laughed at him, not an ounce of sympathy for the sheer boredom Lance was about to endure.)

 

(Keith chuckled softly. Shiro had done the same thing to him.)

 

Some years passed, and humans found Neptune, and connected it with deep waters, turbulent and changeable. Neptune felt the cause of the planets’ plight deeply, though it never admitted to it. Neptune simply agreed to wish as strongly as the others did, and no amount of pandering could draw out any reasoning.

 

(Here was another memory that did not involve Lance, but Shiro and Adam. They were flying, as Lance and Keith once had, around the tail of a comet. They dipped in and out without a care for the cold, laughing as they hurled snowballs at one another. More often than not it was Adam getting pelted, for while Keith had known them to be fliers of equal skill, Shiro had always been faster.)

 

(Adam paused for a moment, while Shiro twirled through the snow and ice so quickly that he very nearly had a tail of his own. Adam’s smile changed from that of energetic enthusiasm to quiet fondness. It didn’t take long for Shiro to notice.

 

“What?” Shiro asked.

 

Adam shook his head. “Nothing.”)

 

With this many planets wishing, they thought, surely their wish would be granted. But of course, it was the fact that there was so many of them that held them back, it seemed. Before, when it had just been the sun and the moon, they had felt the promise of potential, a certain sort of anticipation of something unknown. It had been easy to claim that perhaps it was their own overzealous nature that got their hopes so high, but any time a number of them aligned just so, they felt it, a whisper of a grand happening. As they continued on their celestial paths set for them by nature, the stars around them whispered of the most grand happening of all, something that had yet to pass in their time of consciousness.

 

Their wish would come to pass, they knew. All they had to do was wait for the right moment.

 

(“But what about Keith?” he thought he heard Lance protest.)

 

What about Pluto indeed. Nearly a century passed before humans had any inkling of it. The planets themselves were aware of it, though they didn’t think much of it. After all, it was so far, and so small, even if humans did breathe some sort of life into it, what could it possibly do to help them? As it was, the planets did not believe that humans would give it stories. They had not counted on humans being such sentimental creatures.

 

When humans happened upon Pluto, they gave it stories of endings, of misfortune and death. Suddenly Pluto was not something inconsequential, lingering on the fringes of their solar system, but something to be pitied, for all that it did not want that. For despite it’s morbid origins, Pluto was just as eager as all the other planets to explore this new psyche it had been given, in the most human way possible. It was not at all as sad as the others believed it might be. In endings, Pluto saw new beginnings. In misfortunes, opportunities for change.

 

(Keith saw himself, walking down the sidewalk completely alone with his shoulders hunched against the cold. It could’ve been any day, but it wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t, especially as he spotted Lance a ways down the street.)

 

(Keith saw in vivid detail as Lance happened to glance up, settling on the Keith in the memory.)

 

(Keith slipped on the ice.)

 

(Lance laughed.)

 

(Outside of the memory, Keith laughed too.)

 

The desire to become human was perhaps the biggest change Pluto could undertake. Quietly, Pluto decided to wish as well, knowing and believing that being so small meant it could offer little in the way of wishmaking. Still, as it waited patiently for the day to arrive, casting it’s gaze towards that distant warmth, it began to wish, more than anything, to have a warmth just like that, to belong to something so welcoming. If it could be close to the sun, Pluto decided, even if it melted away, that would certainly bring it happiness.

 

(“The syzygy, the grand syzygy,” everyone whispered.)

 

Keith watched as the cosmos shuddered when the moon settled into place last of all the celestial bodies, a resounding click echoing through the empty space.

 

The wish rattled the stars, shook the planets from their orbits.

 

Then, just as everyone knew would happen, everything began to fall.

 

The stars, planets, moon, and sun fell towards the earth.

 

And Keith awoke with a sharp exhale. He and Lance were as tangled up in each other as they had been when he’d fallen asleep. Lance was awake, wide-eyed and staring at Keith. He had a knowing look in his eyes. Keith had no doubt that if he went to the others now, they would have the same look.

 

“That was… something,” Keith whispered, his voice hoarse with sleep. How long had he been dreaming, remembering?

 

“You wanted to be with me,” Lance breathed. “All along.”

 

Keith turned his face into his pillow. “I guess so.”

 

“Do you suppose--”

 

But whatever Lance was trying to suggest was cut off by a sharp knock at their door. They both scrambled to get it, tripping over each other in the process. The door opened before either of them could reach it. It was Shiro, and just as Keith had suspected, he had a knowing look in his eyes.

 

“We all need to talk,” he told them.

 

Everyone shuffled quietly downstairs, not a single yawn among them. Keith idly wondered how much sleep they had all managed to get. They all seemed a little subdued as they gathered in the living room, perhaps a little contemplative. Only Coran had any semblance of energy, bustling about in the kitchen and whipping up something that smelled very good--Keith realized that he hadn’t had a single thing to eat the day before.

 

Shiro spoke first, “So that dream--or memory. We all had it, right?”

 

Everyone nodded. Shiro smiled.

 

“Then I think we’ve found our solution.”

 

They all blinked, perhaps still a bit addled from it all. Veronica shot up out of her seat suddenly, gasping loud enough to startle everyone else.

 

“The syzygy! Of course! We don’t have to wait ten thousand years for the planets to align themselves because we’re the planets!” she practically shouted.

 

Pidge continued, “If we align ourselves and make the right wish, the sun, moon, and planets will be back in the sky and we can continue living our lives as people!”

 

“Yeah, that sounds great and all but there’s just one problem,” Hunk piped.

 

“Terrell,” Adam said with a solemn nod.

 

“Whatever she wants, it probably doesn’t involve being completely human,” Romelle added.

 

Allura clenched her fists. “Well whatever it is she wants, we’ll have to convince her otherwise, whether she likes it or not.”

 

Coran burst in before anyone could say anything more, insisting that they all eat something before gallivanting off on some noble, world-saving pursuit or other. After all, he told them, they couldn’t very well fix problems on an empty stomach, and Keith found he was quite agreeable to the sentiment.

 

“I think the real question is,” Adam began after a few moments. “How are we going to get her to listen to us in the first place? She already took issue with us being together in the first place, to the point where she nearly blasted some of us out of the sky.”

 

Several of them hummed thoughtfully.

 

“Maybe if we threw some rubber gloves over her hands…?” Pidge offered with the air of someone just spitballing for the sake of generating ideas.

 

Lance had another idea. “That’s a good alternative, but I was thinking… When Keith and I are around each other, our more passive abilities are kind of switched. Or at least, they were before Terrell made a wish on me. For that matter, why was she able to make a wish on me when we just saw that all the planets had to be in alignment to make a wish?”

 

“Perhaps it’s all in the type of wish? Or maybe she had a star on hand, and that was what actually granted the wish?” Veronica suggested.

 

“Anyways, Lance, where were you going with that train of thought?” Shiro asked.

 

“Right,” Lance continued. “Basically, our powers kind of switched because we’re practically opposites, right? At least, that’s what I’m thinking. So whoever is the natural opposite of Terrell can probably hold her back for long enough for the rest of us to get a few words in.”

 

“Hunk,” Keith suddenly said.

 

Hunk looked at everyone with wide eyes. “Me? I don’t know…”

 

Adam seemed to agree with Keith. “That blast that came from your powers interacting with Terrell’s… If Jupiter is frantic, overwhelming power, and Saturn is steady, grounding energy, then maybe…”

 

Hunk still looked uncertain. “I only did what I did because I had to. Terrell would’ve zapped at least one of us right out of the sky, and I didn’t want that to happen. It was a heat of the moment sort of thing, you know? I don’t know if I can make that happen on purpose.”

 

“You can Hunk, I know you can,” Shiro assured him.

 

“What makes you so sure?” Hunk persisted. “This--all this is just so much, and Terrell’s had years to learn how to control her powers, and you’re suddenly so certain that I can hold her back just because I have to?”

 

“It’s our best bet right now, Hunk,” Pidge insisted.

 

“A lousy bet,” Hunk huffed.

 

“Hunk,” Lance began gently. “I know it’s not much to go off of, but it’s better than nothing. I know you’re scared, but even if it doesn’t work, we’ll be right there with you to bail you out. Powers or no, we still outnumber Terrell by a lot. If we can lure her away from other snatchers, we might stand a chance even with her lightning. And there’s still Pidge’s rubber glove idea.”

 

Hunk chuckled softly, his tensed shoulders relaxing, if only a little. “Alright, alright, you’re right. Besides, the sooner we face off with her the better, right? I don’t know about you guys, but the next time I see anyone from the Bureau, I want to be as human as possible.”

 

A murmur of agreement rippled through them. Then--

 

“Keith, do you still have that star?” Shiro asked.

 

Keith nodded, pulling the flask out of his pocket. “I’ve been wondering… why does it--I mean, I’ve never tried to make a wish--a reasonable wish--on it before, but I’ve never seen a star guide people where they need to go before.”

 

“Because only a few stars ever guided people before the fall,” Veronica said, leaning forward with keen interest. “And since we’re in the northern hemisphere…”

 

“You’re not saying that this star might be Polaris?” Keith sputtered.

 

Beside Veronica, Pidge hummed thoughtfully. “She’s got a point. When I worked as an analyst, I never heard of stars acting like this--then again, not many people ask stars for directions.”

 

“Here, let me see it,” Hunk said, making a beckoning motion with his hand.

 

Keith handed it over, and Hunk popped the cork off the flask and gently tipped the tiny star into his palm. Pidge leaned against him, peering at the star just as intently as Hunk was. Hunk rolled it around, observing how it twinkled, and began muttering to himself.

 

“There’s supposed to be a companion,” he said. “Wish I had a star catalog. You don’t happen to have one Pidge, do you?”

 

Pidge shook her head, but Coran piped, “I have one! Several, actually, wait just a tick…”

 

He returned promptly with a stack of star catalogs, with the newest one (updated to include only the stars that were currently in the sky), on the top. They chose an older catalog, one from before the fall. Everyone looked on with mild curiosity.

 

“Is this really necessary?” Veronica questioned.

 

Lance shrugged. “I guess. I’m not going to tell them to stop.”

 

“Yeah, look at the way it kind of bulges on one side--” Pidge said, pointing out whatever it was that she and Hunk saw.

 

“It’s just a matter of which one it is, I suppose--” Hunk replied, nodding along.

 

“I’m betting the bigger one--”

 

“Mm, no probably not, cause, see, here it says that Polaris Aa is a yellow supergiant--”

 

“Oh, this is definitely not a yellow supergiant--”

 

The deliberated for a few moments longer, caught up in specific details like spectral and variable types that Keith couldn’t even begin to keep up with. Beside him, Lance sighed impatiently. Veronica seemed to be much in the same way. All that really mattered was that it could take them where they needed to go--what did it matter whether it was really Polaris or not? Although, Keith couldn’t deny he was curious--mostly about how he’d managed to end up with such an important star. All stars went through the same intense process of analysis, and only those that weren’t essential were passed out to employees as their one wish.

 

Finally, Pidge and Hunk looked up at the others. “It is and isn’t Polaris.”

 

Lance groaned. “What does that even mean?”

 

“Polaris is actually a system of two stars,” Hunk began. “This, as far as we can tell, is the smaller of those two stars.”

 

“So it’s just half of Polaris then?” Romelle inquired.

 

Pidge shrugged. “To put it simply, yeah.”

 

Veronica scowled. “While that’s nice to know, it’s also completely pointless. We already know it’ll take us where we want to go.”

 

“But the other half of the system--” Hunk began.

 

“Can be found later,” Veronica said decidedly. “Right now, our priority is Terrell.”

 

“Veronica is right, the sooner we find Terrell and figure out how to recreate a grand syzygy, the better,” Shiro said, standing tall.

 

That, it seemed, was their cue to go. Or so they thought.

 

“Wait,” Adam, said suddenly as he stood up and put an arm in front of Shiro.

 

Shiro frowned. “What is it?”

 

Everyone quieted, as though to listen for something.

 

“Can’t you sense it?” Adam whispered.

 

“Sense what?” Shiro demanded.

 

Adam didn’t immediately respond. Keith took a deep breath, trying to sense what he’d sensed before. All he could sense was a jumble of different things, likely all the other planets around him. But then, he had a feeling he knew what it was regardless. Or rather, who it was.

 

“Terrell,” Adam finally whispered. “She’s coming.”

 

“But we normally hear her coming,” Romelle protested.

 

“That’s what’s so concerning,” Adam replied, chancing a peek out the window.

 

Keith opened his mouth to mention that Terrell had most certainly been in the dream with them, and hadn’t seemed happy about what they’d all seen regarding her, when Adam whipped around and shouted for them all to get down. No sooner had they all dropped to the floor than a massive bolt of lightning smashed through the window. Keith couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. He blinked furiously and rubbed at his eyes, trying to see if everyone was okay. He felt a hand on his arm, tugging insistently. He followed as best as he could, reaching to see if he could grab hold of anyone else to help them to safety as well.

 

When the spots started to clear from his vision, Keith found himself crammed in a hallway with everyone else. Several people were saying something, something that he couldn’t yet hear. He saw Coran gesturing towards the back of the house. Allura looked concerned, and gave him a quick hug before dashing in the direction he’d indicated. Everyone followed suit, Keith being led along by Lance.

 

Keith shook his head, trying to orient himself. “Where are we going?”

 

“Out the back, we have to lure Terrell away from here,” Lance answered quickly.

 

Only about half of them had made it out the door before another lightning strike pushed them back in. Adam pushed to the front of the group. Through his disorientation, Keith could feel the air shift from something dry and crackling to being heavy and imposing. Thunder cracked overhead as Adam shouted something to Shiro, who joined him at the front. From the doorway, Keith felt an icy gale rush in, accompanied by the sharp sting of icy rain. Lighting still struck, but the aim was off.

 

“Let’s go!” Adam shouted over the storm.

 

No one needed telling twice. Allura led the way for them. Even in the midst of a full on storm she knew the terrain best. Keith thought he could hear Terrell screaming behind them, but didn’t dare look back. They had known they would have to face her sooner rather than later, but this was much sooner than any of them had been anticipating.

 

“What’s the plan?!” Keith clamored, straining to make his voice heard over the noise.

 

“Same as we agreed, we just need to put some distance between us and Coran’s house!” Shiro yelled back.

 

The rain was just starting to die down when a lightning bolt struck far too close to their group, sending more than half of them, Keith included, flying. He hit the ground hard, sliding a little in the mud. The wrist he’d broken only a few months prior twinged. Nothing seemed broken, but if they carried on like this, things wouldn’t stay that way. He caught sight of Terrell’s faint silhouette, approaching them with the air of a murderer. Whatever she wanted, she was going to get it, no matter what the cost.

 

She raised her fist to strike again, and Keith didn’t think. He dug in deep and sprinted towards Terrell, tackling her and slamming her to the ground so hard he heard the air rush out of her lungs in a single gasp. The others were shouting at him, no doubt thinking he was off on some heroic tangent again, but he paid them no heed.

 

“What do you want?!” Keith demanded.

 

Terrell sputtered and gasped, still trying to breathe. Her expression teetered between seething rage and incomprehensible terror. Keith wouldn’t let himself be fooled again.

 

When she finally caught her breath, she wheezed, “As if that really matters to you!”

 

Terrell caught Keith in the gut with a sparking fist, making every part of his body seize up. He couldn’t even cry out. Next thing he knew he was flying again, feeling utterly boneless as the current of electricity left him. Hands were on him almost the instant he hit the ground again, checking for injuries, helping him to stand. He couldn’t even support his own weight.

 

“You’ve been nothing but a thorn in my side,” Terrell said, advancing on them dangerously. “I should’ve dealt with you a long time ago, and now I have to deal with all of you--”

 

“Deal with this!” Hunk shrieked suddenly, charging forward with speed that belied his size.

 

Terrell threw up her hands; Keith braced for impact.

 

What followed was nowhere near as coherent as anything he saw or heard the first time this had happened. He felt himself flying backwards for the third time, his vision disoriented once more. What was real and what was a dream was hardly discernible, and whether the screams he heard were from his friends or from a memory that didn’t belong to him was just as impossible to tell. 

 

(“I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to!”)

 

Keith felt his legs underneath him, hardly able to carry his own weight but moving anyways. He felt his hand grasping at someone’s arm, but when he looked, he couldn’t see them.

 

(“I just didn’t want to die!”)

 

He tripped over something, and whoever he was holding onto scrambled to keep him upright. Where were they going? Who were they following? Where was Terrell? Was Hunk okay?

 

(“I didn’t want to die!”)

 

“Just over the hill!” he heard Allura shouting. “We can lose her in the sunflower field!”

 

“Losing her won’t be that easy,” Adam could be heard arguing.

 

“I suppose you have a better idea?”

 

A pause. “Lead on.”

 

(“I don’t want to die!”)

 

Up ahead, Keith saw glittering lights that were just out of focus for him. This wasn’t a good idea. There was too much light, he wouldn’t be able to hide them in the shadows. He tried to tell everyone as much, but found that his mouth just wouldn’t form words. Light began to engulf them as the sunflowers came into clearer focus.

 

(“I will not die!”)

 

Another lightning strike rattled the ground just as they ducked among the tall sunflowers. Keith blinked, his head clear once more.

 

“I can’t hide us in here,” he told the others.

 

“That’s fine,” Shiro assured him. “We just need to get her to listen.”

 

“Guys, I don’t think I can do that again,” Hunk breathed, doubled over with fatigue. “I can’t, I--”

 

“It’s alright Hunk,” Romelle said, helping him to stand. “We’ll find another way.”

 

“You guys really think you can just hide from me? Have you forgotten what we are?!” Terrell shrieked, loudly pushing through the sunflowers.

 

“Split up!” Shiro hissed. “Stay with someone, but if we split up that might confuse her long enough for us to maybe talk to her!”

 

“Takashi, she’s not here to talk,” Adam whispered back.

 

“But we need her--”

 

They stopped abruptly as an arc of electricity sailed dangerously close over their heads.

 

“Move!”

 

Keith turned sharply away, crashing through the sunflowers as noisily as Terrell had been. In the back of his mind he knew separating was a bad idea, even if they stayed in pairs. Keith stopped short, looking around frantically. In the chaos, he hadn’t thought to make sure someone stayed with him. He was completely alone. He strained to hear something, anything from the others, but in the soft light of the sunflowers, there was nothing. He didn’t dare call out for them, not with Terrell prowling about.

 

Keith moved through the sunflowers as swiftly and as quietly as possible after that. The silence was unnerving. Not even the sound of lightning split the air around him. That was perhaps the most worrying of all. A Terrell that was wild and aimless was dangerous, but far more so was a Terrell that was focused. Keith tried to sense where she was, where the others were, but everyone’s energy was almost overwhelming. No doubt that was because every planet was larger than him. He scowled--there had to be something he could do.

 

Before Keith could think of anything, however, he was tackled from behind and slammed face first into the ground. The hairs on the back on his neck stood on end. He spat dirt from his mouth and wormed an arm free to elbow his assailant in the face.

 

Terrell recoiled, allowing Keith to whip around. He’d managed to nail her in the nose, a trickle of blood already dripping from it. Terrell snarled.

 

“I should’ve taken you out a long time ago,” she growled.

 

“What’s stopping you now?” Keith challenged.

 

Her palm was instantly alight. “Not a damn thing.”

 

Terrell lunged at Keith with such speed that he was only barely able to dodge. There was no hiding here, no confined room to plunge into darkness, no stark shadows to blend into. It was just him, Terrell, and the gentle glow of the sunflowers around them. He threw out a fist, clipping the side of Terrell’s face. She hardly flinched, and thrust her hands towards him again. Her eyes were alight with killing intent. But why? Keith distantly considered asking, but had no doubt that Terrell would very likely not answer. Even if she did, it was likely not to be in a way that would make sense to Keith.

 

“Listen, maybe you don’t care, but there might be a way to prevent us from getting put in the sky!” Keith attempted, frantically dodging Terrell’s rapid jabs.

 

“You’re right, I don’t care,” she huffed.

 

“Awfully bold of you to say, for someone who doesn’t want to die,” Keith spat.

 

With a wild cry, Terrell caught Keith by the front of his shirt, sliding her foot around to kick his feet out from underneath him. He hit the ground with a strangled shout. Terrell pressed her hand hard against his chest, her eyes daring him to make a move.

 

“Why do you think I’m trying to kill you first?”

 

The jolt of electricity Keith got was stronger than anything he’d gotten before. He wheezed painfully as his entire body seized, and then began to spasm out of his control. He was still able to breathe, but only just, and with great and agonizing effort. He tried to shout, to cry for help, but all he could manage was a staccato of choked gasps. His stomach felt like it was turning itself inside-out, swirling sickeningly. The sensation of spasming did not ease, but Keith’s awareness of it did. His chest felt like it was on fire. The edges of his vision started to darken.

 

Keith was dying, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He couldn’t even ask why.

 

Above him, Terrell watched with single-minded focus. It was a far cry from the memory he’d seen of her, crying and aghast at what she’d done.

 

Keith was just on the edge of consciousness, unable to even see Terrell’s face in front of him when the pain suddenly eased, the weight pressing down on him gone. His first thought was that this really was the end, that Terrell had succeeded in what she set out to do. His second thought was concern for what she might do to the others, and how heartbroken they would be if he actually did die.

 

But then his vision cleared, the face above him still framed by sunflowers, but decidedly not Terrell.

 

“Keith? Keith, are you okay?! Give me something, buddy,” Lance said, hands fluttering around Keith’s face and over his chest.

 

Keith grabbed one of Lance’s hands and held it close to his heart. “I’m alright.”

 

From a ways away, Terrell could be heard yelling incoherently. Lance helped Keith to sit up. Terrell was surrounded by the others, looking like a wild animal. Dangerous, feral, and liable to do anything to ensure her own survival. Her hands sparked threateningly--Keith vaguely wondered if she had a limit.

 

“Stay out of my way!” she shrieked.

 

“Give it up, Terrell,” Adam commanded. “It’s all of us against you. Even if you can keep us at bay today, we’re all aware of who we are now. It’s only a matter of time before--”

 

“Shut up!” Terrell shouted, flinging an arc of lightning at Adam that narrowly missed him.

 

“You have to help us, whether you like it or not,” Pidge chimed, ducking the lightning that was promptly sent her way.

 

Terrell was panting hard. “Stay out of my way. I’m not becoming human, and I’m not going back up into the sky. I’m not. I won’t!”

 

“Terrell,” Allura started, trying to sound gentle. “If you help us, perhaps we can help you--”

 

“There is nothing--” Terrell spat, throwing lightning at Allura. “That any of you could do--to help me! So just stay out of my way!”

 

“You’re the one who keeps going out of your way to find us!” Hunk shouted, dodging the lightning well before it got close to him.

 

“As if you all weren’t planning on finding me!” she yelled. Her hands were trembling, clenched tightly and still alight with sparks.

 

Lance hoisted Keith up to his feet, an arm wrapped tightly around his waist. Together, they joined the others around Terrell. She glowered fiercely at the two of them. They had, it seemed, reached a stalemate. Terrell would not cooperate, but she was the key to their only solution. They had to convince her, they had to.

 

“You’re reaching your limit,” Lance noted. Indeed, Terrell looked liable to collapse at any moment, kept upright by sheer spite alone. “You may as well help us. It’ll benefit you too, you know. You won’t have to get stitched up into the sky--”

 

Terrell made no sudden movement at that, didn’t even retort. Only scowled and dug her nails even further into the flesh of her palms. Keith felt the air change in an instant, the ground practically hissing in anticipation. Several things happened at once. Several people warned everyone to move. Keith slipped out of Lance’s hold, charging towards Terrell, rather than away. Lance was shouting at him again. Everything seemed to light up in slow motion. Keith grabbed fistfuls of Terrell’s shirt, his momentum making him plow right into her. The light around them intensified, until Keith couldn’t see anything, hear anything, or even feel anything.

 

Then, everything faded to black.

 

“Let me go!”

 

Slowly, Keith came to the awareness that he had Terrell pinned down, but they were no longer in the sunflower field. Indeed, it didn’t look as though they were on earth at all. Terrell struggled in vain against Keith, no lightning to speak of. Stars surrounded them from every angle. Keith couldn’t see where the others were.

 

“Hey! Let me go!”

 

Keith turned his attention to Terrell. He had managed to drop his knee directly on her sternum. Terrell’s face was contorted with pain, and she struggled to push him off. Keith glared down at her.

 

“Why should I?”

 

Terrell paused, looking increasingly panicked. “Because--because you’re not a murderer!”

 

“Want to bet?!” Keith snarled, digging his knee further into her chest. “You’ve tried to kill my friends on numerous occasions, you stole the power of the sun and don’t intend to give it up, and you don’t want to help us safely put the sun back in the sky, essentially dooming everyone on the planet. Maybe killing you is the real solution, so give me one good reason why I shouldn’t!”

 

“You can’t--you can’t!” Terrell sputtered, hands scrambling to push Keith off of her.

 

“You tried to kill me, even after saying that I was nothing to you, acting like I was the last person in the world that could pose a threat to you--”

 

“Shut up!”

 

“You’re a murderer, you don’t care about anyone but yourself--the world would be better off without you,” Keith continued.

 

“Stop it!” Terrell pleaded. “You can’t kill me!”

 

“Can’t, or won’t?”

 

“Don’t!” she sobbed, tears openly streaming down her face. “Don’t kill me, please! I don’t want to die!”

 

Keith, for all that he promised himself he wouldn’t hesitate the next time he got an opportunity like this, took pause as everything seemed to click into place. Her usual reluctance to kill, and the memory of those three snatchers she had killed, where she looked just as distressed as she did now. Her persistent goal of obtaining the power of the sun for herself, and her aversion to any interference Keith himself might have intended.

 

Terrell was afraid--terrified--of dying. And Keith was the very personification of just that.

 

“Keith?” he heard Lance call out softly.

 

Keith turned to see that Lance was suddenly there, and so too were the others, looking on with expressions that ranged from tremulous concern to downright fear. Keith did not ease up on Terrell. He wouldn’t, couldn’t. Not when Terrell posed such a threat. He couldn’t allow her to harm them or anyone else, no matter how scared she was.

 

“You’re going to help us,” Keith told her. “You’re going to be human, and one day, perhaps many years in the future, you’re going to die. And so are the rest of us.”

 

Terrell shook her head wildly. “I don’t want this anymore, I don’t want to be human anymore!”

 

Keith frowned, and glanced at the others. He almost felt sorry for Terrell. Had it not been for her previous attempts at murder, he almost certainly would’ve been intent on helping her. But she’d made her choices. And Keith had to make his. The other planets, too, made their own choices. Slowly, but surely, that buzz of anticipation crept under his skin, that whispering, so much softer than it had been all those years before, telling of something happening. Nearly everyone was in place.

 

“I don’t want to,” Terrell wept weakly, her head lolling to the side. “I don’t want to die like a human.”

 

“But you do want to live like one,” Keith replied.

 

“I can’t, not anymore. It was an accident, but they decided I was a murderer.”

 

“Maybe at first, but then you decided to agree with them. You want to live like a human, but facing the consequences of your choices is part of that.”

 

“I don’t need you to lecture me,” Terrell spat, regaining some of her usual spark. “You won’t kill me, cause you need me.”

 

“Try me. We’ll find another way if we need to,” Keith challenged.

 

Terrell, finally, seemed to take him seriously.

 

“Fine.”

 

With a single word, it felt as though single thread in the fabric of reality had finally snapped into place with a resounding crack. Keith’s nerves were alight with it. He glanced at the others, blinking when he saw a faint glow emanating from them all. Beneath him, Terrell glowed too. Keith’s own light could hardly hold a candle to everyone else, least of all Lance, whose form was almost completely lost amidst the glaring, golden light. Without releasing his hold on Terrell, Keith closed his eyes, and focused on his wish, everyone’s wish, to be completely separate from the planets.

 

The static just underneath Keith’s skin intensified, but nothing happened. He frowned, keeping his eyes tightly squeezed shut. The light from all around him seeped through his eyelids, so that all Keith saw was muted light. He focused every fiber of his being into teasing apart the human part of him and the planet. Where was the line? Keith wondered. Where did Pluto end and Keith begin?

 

Or, he wondered despairingly as he opened his eyes, was there even a difference at all?

 

The static did not subside, but they remained suspended in a dream-space, with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

 

Keith finally pushed himself off of Terrell, who breathed deeply in relief. He looked at the others, who looked just as lost as he felt. This was a grand syzygy, even if they weren’t in a line. They knew it was. So why wasn’t their wish being granted? If planets could be turned into humans because of a wish, surely those same humans could relinquish their status as planets for the sake of the earth with a wish, right?

 

“What are we missing?” Shiro asked of no one in particular, his voice laden with desperation.

 

“We did it, we managed to recreate a grand syzygy--so why is nothing happening?” Pidge bemoaned.

 

“Maybe,” Lance began slowly. “There was more to it than just all the planets having the same wish.”

 

“How do you mean?” Veronica asked.

 

“Terrell was able to make a wish on me as the sun, and whether I wanted to or not, I was able to grant it. So maybe it never had anything to do with the grand syzygy at all,” he continued.

 

“Then how were we able to become human at all? How was our wish able to be granted?” Terrell demanded.

 

“Because,” Lance mused, his eyes roving over every single one of them in fierce contemplation. “While I have the power to grant wishes, only one of us has the power to grant great change.”

 

His eyes settled on Keith, whose heart skipped at the statement.

 

“But Pluto gained sentience well before the grand syzygy, why couldn’t our wish have been granted then?” Allura pointed out.

 

It was Adam who offered an answer, when Lance couldn’t find it. “Because they were so far apart. They needed the rest of us to connect them.”

 

Keith said nothing all the while. It made sense, of course it did, but it stirred up something fierce within him, something warm that weighed heavy on his heart. Little Pluto, associated with death by the very humans (who themselves rejected death as fiercely as they could) that went on to say it wasn’t even a planet, was the key to granting their wish.

 

“If that’s the case,” Keith began. “Then why wasn’t the wish granted anyways? We’re here, and we’ve recreated the grand syzygy--why didn’t it just work anyways?”

 

“I suppose you and I have to be in actual alignment,” Lance suggested, holding out a hand towards Keith. “What do you say?”

 

Keith didn’t hesitate to reach for Lance’s hand. “I suppose we do.”

 

When their hands met, it felt like electricity sparking between them, only softer and warmer. It drew them closer to each other, and while the light around them began to fade, the sparks under Keith’s skin intensified. The force between them inexplicably pulled them together, stronger than any electricity, magnetism, or even gravity. They wouldn’t have been able to part even if they wanted to. As it was, Keith had no such thoughts of parting with Lance. Not this time. And not for a while, if he had anything to say about it.

 

The last thing he saw before the light around them was snuffed out was Lance’s stunning blue eyes, and Keith was certain that not even the sun itself could shine brighter.

 

When Keith opened his eyes next, it was to the dim glow of sunflowers. A brief moment of panic took hold--what if that had been an actual dream? What if nothing had actually changed? But then he looked beside him, where his and Lance’s hands were still intertwined, and breathed a sigh of relief. He waited a moment, breathing deeply. He felt the same, but knew different. Lance stirred, not once taking his hand from Keith’s.

 

“Hey,” Keith greeted softly.

 

“Hey,” Lance returned. “Did it work?”

 

Keith glanced at the still dark sky that was mostly obscured by the sunflowers that towered over them.

 

“Let’s find out.”

 

Around them, the others were waking. Terrell was nowhere to be found, but for once, Keith didn’t worry about it. If she wanted to run, that was her choice. If it truly had worked, then there was nothing to worry about from her any longer.

 

Together they stumbled out of the sunflower field, looking up at the sky eagerly. From the within the sunflowers, it looked different already, but it was hard to be sure. Perhaps they were simply too hopeful. When they finally found the edge of the field, however, they were presented with a new problem: A squad of keepers, the very ones that had searched Keith’s apartment, were waiting for them, as if they’d known they would be there. Keith had a funny feeling that they’d been ratted out by one person in particular, who happened to be conspicuously absent.

 

The keepers were deaf to their protests as they were apprehended. Irritated as he was by it, Keith couldn’t really blame them. After all, the short explanation of what had just happened was essentially “planet magic”. Granted, with the planets having superhuman abilities, Keith thought that they should’ve at least listened to their story before deciding it was all a lie to keep from getting stitched up in the sky.

 

Still they continued to look up at the sky, looking for any proof at all that what they had done actually worked. As far as they could see, nothing had changed, but Keith thought that maybe the sky looked a little lighter, the stars a little dimmer.

 

The keepers marched them back towards Coran’s house. The damage from Terrell’s lightning looked far worse now that things weren’t quite so hectic. Keith made a mental note to find a star to help repair Coran’s house. It was the least he could do--if he and the others managed to get free of the keepers, anyways. Another squad of keepers were waiting at the house, no doubt to ensure that they were all delivered to the Bureau without trouble. 

 

By then, Keith was certain that it was not just his imagination--the sky was now a dusty lilac color, only a few stars remaining in the sky. The keepers noticed it too, murmuring anxiously amongst themselves. Even then, they would not hear an explanation from the supposed criminals. Best to shuffle them off to the Bureau for interrogation, sooner rather than later.

 

Just before they could leave, however, one of the keepers shouted in alarm, pointing frantically at the mountains. From behind them, a bright, intense light was spilling into the valley, painting everything with vibrant and beautiful colors. Keith’s breath caught in his throat. Lance’s hand, still holding to Keith’s, squeezed tightly.

 

Coran stepped out of his house then, escorted by two keepers. He gasped when he saw the light, then frantically searched all the faces before him, heaving a deep sigh of relief when he found Lance alive and well among them. He looked back towards the light that grew more insistent with every passing moment, his eyes shining with tears.

 

“I don’t believe it,” he whispered, almost reverently.

 

“What, what is it?” the lead keeper demanded, clearly alarmed by whatever was happening.

 

“It’s the sun,” Coran said. “The sun is rising.”

 

None of the keepers said anything. Some of them looked skeptical, and wary of the coming light. Others looked hopeful, while others still looked downright terrified. Keith found he couldn’t blame them. Everything was already brighter than he’d ever seen, he was afraid that the sun might accidentally scorch the earth in its brilliance. 

 

As they watched, however, the sun did no such thing.

 

When the sun finally appeared from behind the mountains, a veritable ball of pure light that Keith winced away from, Lance was the first one to whoop loudly, jumping in place and declaring that they’d done it, they’d saved the world! Keith laughed along with Lance--it hardly felt real. Lance took his hand from Keith’s, only to wrap him up in a crushing hug, twirling around as they continued to laugh. The others smiled and laughed and embraced as well (save for an awkward handshake between Adam and Shiro). The keepers too joined in their jubilation. The earth was saved.

 

The sun had risen.

 

They were taken back to the Bureau after admiring the sunrise, but under very different circumstances. Suffice to say, it was no longer an arrest. The landscape was vastly different, drowning as it was in sunlight. Between the keepers and the former planets, they very nearly got lost trying to return to the Bureau, so foreign was everything to them now. It was like a completely different world. 

 

In every place they flew over, there were people standing completely still, looking in wonder at the blindingly blue sky. It was one thing to see pictures of it in textbooks and on the internet. It was quite another to see it for one’s self, to fly through it as the sun rose higher and higher within it. Keith was certain he could lose himself in that blue, easier than he could’ve ever lost himself in the darkness.

 

The Bureau was, of course, in an uproar by the time they returned. Several supervising officials (essentially, their bosses’ bosses, and their bosses too) were on them in an instant, demanding every single detail of what had happened. They told them everything, from the very start. By the time they had finished telling their story, answering all questions asked, and telling their story again, the sun had reached its peak in the sky, and was dipping back down.

 

Of those of them that were still employed by the Bureau, they were given a few days off to recover (Pidge was offered her old position in the analysts department, as she should’ve been all along). Keith was glad for it. For once, he wasn’t sure if he could handle keeping busy after everything that had happened. It would be nice to take some time to process everything, adjust to this new world that had suddenly been thrust upon them.

 

The sun was setting when they were all released to go home, the sight casting brilliant reds and fiery oranges across the sky. Keith felt he could watch it forever. He was already eager to watch tomorrow’s sunrise. Beside him, Lance watched as well, a soft smile gracing his features. His eyes were bluer than the daytime sky, Keith noted.

 

Lance turned to him. “Guess I’ll see you around?”

 

Keith hesitated. “Yeah,” he eventually said. “I guess you will.”

 

Lance’s shoulders slumped, but he smiled all the same waving at Keith as he walked away. Keith waved back, watching him go until he rounded a corner, disappearing from his sight. If he was truly honest with himself, which was still a challenge even now, he wanted nothing more than to invite Lance back to his apartment to stay with him for a while longer, to hold him as he slept. But, he told himself, Lance needed time to process all this too. Keith wouldn’t deny him that just because he was feeling clingy.

 

When Keith slept that night, he was, for the first time, not plagued by dreams of an infinite darkness, nor of an unreachable light. He dreamed only of blue skies and bluer eyes.

 

Much as he wanted to see it, Keith slept through the second sunrise the earth had seen in a generation. It didn’t bother him. There would be plenty more, and he was sure to see the sunset that evening. For the majority of the day, he lingered outside like so many others, revelling not only in the light, but also in the warmth. Not once did he have need of a jacket. In fact, towards the end of the day, Keith worried that there might be times when the sun would become too hot for him to bear. He didn’t let it worry him for long. It was another problem for another day, he decided.

 

He slept through the third sunrise as well, and for all that he assured himself it was fine, he was disappointed all the same. Shiro came by, as he was wont to do, and they went to the roof of Keith’s apartment building, basking under the sun and talking of everything, from what they’d experienced to what a world with the sun would mean for the future.

 

And speaking of the future, Shiro revealed that he and Adam had agreed to patch things up between them. It would be a long and tedious and likely painful process, but, Shiro admitted, he thought it would be worth it. Even if he hadn’t said anything, it would’ve been all too obvious to Keith how much he had missed Adam, how happy he was to have him back in spite of everything surrounding their separation. Keith wished them the best of luck in earnest, even if he himself hadn’t quite forgiven Adam for leaving when the first opportunity presented itself. So long as Shiro was happy and they were actively working out problems between them, past and present, Keith was content.

 

Keith was awake early enough to see the fourth sunrise. By then, he’d had his fill of standing around, admiring the new world. He was once again in need of something to do. Luckily, as he’d been putting away his coats, his tiny star, one half of the Polaris system, fell out of his pocket, which had somehow miraculously been returned to him safe and sound. It took only a moment of deliberation for Keith to decide what to do with it.

 

In retrospect, he thought as he sailed through the newly blue sky, he could’ve very well passed the job off to some searchers in the Bureau. After all, he was officially a replacer. Searching, even for particular stars, was no longer his job, but Keith felt he had to see this through. Perhaps he felt attached to the little star that had guided him through this entire ordeal, which now guided him to its other half. Perhaps he wasn’t yet ready to give it up, as he knew he would have to sooner or later.

 

He hadn’t really considered how long it would take to find the other star of the Polaris system, but thankfully Keith had hardly been flying for even an hour when the little star guided him downwards towards a bright and glittering beach. The sight robbed him of his breath, such that he temporarily forgot his objective. The ocean was like a living thing, rolling and undulating and practically breathing as it crashed against the shore. Where it met with the sky was a sharp contrast, for all that they were both blue.

 

After a few moments, Keith remembered the insistent tugging of the cord around his hand. The other star of Polaris was around here somewhere. It would be a challenge to find in broad daylight, he realized, especially among the sparkling grains of sand, but then, he didn’t have anything better to do. He let the star lead on, walking down the stretch of the beach and listening to the lull of the waves. Keith was in the midst of considering that he ought to come to the beach just for the sake of enjoying it when he spotted someone else walking along the beach, a familiar flash of silver hair catching his eye.

 

He would’ve ignored her, had it not been for the fact that his star was pointing right at her.

 

“Miss Essa,” he greeted brusquely as his star went slack. There was no denying it then.

 

“Keith,” the older woman returned with a knowing twinkle in her eye. “Lovely day for a walk on the beach, isn’t it? I suppose people have forgotten how nice it is, but they’ll remember soon enough, I wager. I haven’t forgotten, at least. I loved coming here before the fall, and it’s so much sweeter to come back to it after so long.”

 

Keith let her ramble, but looked at her pointedly all the while.

 

Miss Essa glanced at the slack star dangling from his hand. She hummed. “I suppose someone had to find me out sooner or later.”

 

“But you’re too old,” Keith pointed out bluntly.

 

Miss Essa laughed aloud at that. “That’s because I wasn’t born from the fall. I made a wish, you see, on a very particular star, though I didn’t know it at the time. I wager my wish was only granted because it was so in line with the star’s purpose.”

 

When Keith said nothing, she continued, “I was about your age when the fall happened, and it didn’t take long for people to realize that they really could wish on stars. I was a bit of a wanderer myself, you see, a little lost at times, but there was something I wanted very badly, so when I came across a star, I couldn’t help myself.”

 

She paused again, and Keith couldn’t help she was doing it for the sake of dramatic effect.

 

“I wanted to help others, to guide them in the right direction. I guess I wanted to be for others what I wanted in the people around me,” Miss Essa elaborated. “Normally when a star grants a wish, it either turns into a physical object, if such a thing was wished for, or it simply disappears.”

 

Keith nodded, though he knew all this already.

 

“Not so for this wish,” Miss Essa said. “The star seemed to melt in my hands, and it seeped into my skin. It turned my hair white--it was very nearly black before. From then on, I seemed to know just how to nudge people in the right direction.”

 

“Like you did with me,” Keith noted.

 

Miss Essa nodded, but added, “I think you would’ve found your way eventually, I just helped you along a little quicker is all. Even without that little star there. There is--or rather was--something different about you. I suspect the change has to do with the return of certain celestial objects to the sky?”

 

Keith didn’t answer, mainly because he knew Miss Essa already knew, even though she’d phrased it like a question.

 

“I thought so,” she said. “You weren’t so different from Terrell.”

 

Keith’s eyes snapped up to her’s. “You knew Terrell.”

 

“In passing. I was only allowed a very short time with her after--well--”

 

“I know,” Keith said. “About the accident.”

 

Miss Essa shook her head. “Poor girl. With that, at least, I know she didn’t mean it. Some would say that it doesn’t make a difference, whether she meant it or not, but in her case, there definitely was. I did my best to try and show her that she didn’t have to become what others insisted she was, but as I said, I only had a short time with her, and ultimately, she chose her path.”

 

“No one knows where she is,” Keith commented idly.

 

Miss Essa hummed thoughtfully again. “She’s chosen her path.”

 

Keith said nothing.

 

“And now, I suppose, it’s time for you to choose yours,” she added with a pointed nod of her head.

 

Keith looked down the beach where she’d indicated, towards another lone figure staring out at the vast blue expanse. Keith felt his heart leap into his throat. Even from a distance, in this new light, there was no mistaking that silhouette. And yet still he hesitated, looking back at Miss Essa, and then to the star in his hand. She raised an eyebrow, as if to ask, “Well?”

 

He held the star out to her. “The Bureau doesn’t need to be trying to stitch anyone else in the sky.”

 

Miss Essa took it with a solemn nod. “I quite agree.”

 

Without another word, Keith took off sprinting down the beach. It made his still tired muscles burn, and the sun was beating mercilessly at his back. He could’ve walked. He could’ve called out. He knew this and chose to run all the same. His heart was hammering harder than it needed to, his lungs already burning. He waited until the figure he was running towards was only a few feet away before calling out.

 

“Lance!”

 

Lance whipped his head towards Keith, eyes wide as Keith crashed into him, his momentum sending them both tumbling towards the waiting waves. Keith’s lips clumsily found Lance’s, lingering for only a second before pulling away, sputtering and shivering from the ice cold water. Lance looked stunned, completely at a loss for words, at least for a moment.

 

Then, he began to laugh, fully and vibrantly. “That time was definitely your fault!”

 

Keith snorted, accidentally getting salt water up his nose and coughing profusely while Lance continued to laugh, nearly falling backwards into the water. When Keith finally recovered, his sinuses still burning, he tried to scowl, but ended up with a crooked smile.

 

“I cannot believe I’m in love with you.”

 

Lance paused at that, eyes dancing like the ocean behind them.

 

“You--you what now?” he stammered, cheeks suddenly and beautifully bright red.

 

Keith smiled even wider, gently cradling Lance’s face in his hands. “You heard me. I’m in love with you, really and truly.”

 

It dawned on Lance’s face as steadily as the sun, and when it did, it was like he was the sun all over again. He pulled Keith towards him, and Keith let him. This time when they kissed, it was less frantic, their lips pressing together easily. Despite the chill of the water, Lance’s lips were warm and tasted of sea salt, a taste that Keith knew he would never tire of. When they pulled apart, they gave each other only just enough space to breathe--their lips still brushed each other with every smile, every contented sigh.

 

“Took you long enough to figure it out,” Lance huffed.

 

“I know,” Keith murmured, resting his forehead against Lance’s. “I’m sorry I made you wait.”

 

Lance smiled, and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of Keith’s mouth. “Honestly? I would’ve waited until the sun itself burned out.”

 

“So dramatic,” Keith said exasperatedly, brushing Lance’s still-red cheek with his thumb.

 

“Yeah, but you love me anyways,” Lance teased.

 

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, his chest swelling with what could only be described as sheer happiness. “I do.”

 

If there were any vestiges of a cold, dark world lingering anywhere, they were surely driven away when they kissed again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all... I hardly know what to feel. This is the first multi-chapter fic I've ever finished, and it was such a big one too. This has been months in the making--legit, the day season 7 came out I started the first draft of this story. Thanks so much to my darlings Julie and Angie, who sat through the entire mess of the first draft and have constantly supported me from day one, y'all are the real MVPs.
> 
> And thanks so much to the readers, those who were here for the whole story, and those who came in closer to the end. I do intend to write more klance stories, no matter what happens in season 8, so maybe check out what I have going on @stories-in-the-stars on tumblr? Thanks so much for reading, I hope this story was enjoyable for y'all to read.


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